“ That is a real cool trick you did there Azure,” said Luke.

“ What do you mean?”

“ Do you really think this scheme of yours is enough to trick me?”

“ I assure you, there is no trick. Crow has really gone crazy!”

“ Okay let say that I believe in your words 100%. If Prince Crow really did commit such a heinous crime. We would cover this up. The 3 girls he murdered were all lower nobility. This should be extremely easy to cover up.”

“ But Crow wants revenge against the entire nobility of the kingdom for not sending younger girls!”

Why is my plan failing? I started to act more desperate, everything is falling apart. The nightmare won’t let me go free.

“ Your 1st mistake was the document you gave me. The name list of the nobility girls. Why did Crow only choose 3 girls and why 3 lower nobility? The answer is simple. He didn’t choose them at all. Those 3 girls must have begged him to be chosen. There is no verification that Crow has chosen them. Also, there is no evidence for any other nobility girls here, in fact, we can easily verify the safety of the other nobility girls. If he truly wanted revenge against the entire nobility. He would have massacred all of them.”

“ But..but…”

“ Your 2nd mistake. You killed the 3 girls on his bed, and let their blood soak all over it to frame him as a pedophile rapist-killer. You thought it was fool-proof? It is too convenient. You and the maids were un-harmed when you arrived at Toga. Which led us to believe this is a setup. Crow is too strong for the likes of you commoners to beat him. Which led me to believe that there is a powerful conspirator.”

“ I am telling the truth! If you...”

I tried one more desperate attempt to persuade him that he was wrong. It was useless.

“ Silence Maid. Your lies have caught up with you. You and the maids will be tortured until we find Crow. Now that is the true mystery. If you tell me where he is, I will make sure you and the maids won’t be punished at all.”

I didn’t know what to say anymore. Looks like I was truly an idiot for thinking this plan to be fool-proof. I gave in to my hatred to make Crow suffer and stupidly rushed the plan without proper preparations.

“ Oh right, there was a 3rd mistake as well. That paper you tried hiding. I already read it. I wonder if you would choose to hand over that crucial piece of evidence to me. But you chose not too. Are you working with the conspirator? Or are you telling me this is your plan instead? Crow did verify that paper with his blood thumb mark after all.”

Are all Royals this smart? I thought the Earl was but he was just being cautious. But Luke is showing an intelligence far greater than that of the Earl. Should I just lie about there being a conspirator against Crow? If they managed to find Crow, and he tells the truth. They are going to have all of us maids punished. Should I try to kill Luke and his soldiers and destroy all the evidence? Is it possible for me and the maids to get away from this situation?

“ You have been quiet for a while maid. You could have taken my hand and help us look for the conspirator. I do not believe you maids are capable of pulling this type of scheme on your own. You would have been pardon by me since you were forced by the conspirators right? Soldiers torture them until they confess!”

“ Yes Sir!” obeyed the soldiers.

My friends all looked at me with the fear of being tortured, waiting for me to say something to turn the situation around.

“ Wait Luke, there is a conspirator.”

“ Finally willing to confess?”

There is no way out. Eventually, they will find out the truth and have us tortured. 1 gruesome year of torture was a common punishment used by the elites against the commoners. After that year is over, they would finally find peace in death. I didn’t want to subject my long-time trusted friends to this torturous punishment. I will have to kill Luke and his soldiers here. Luke is only wearing metal grieves with no weapons. His blood control specialty might be in punching skills.

I walked over to Luke. Blood Control Shadowless Hand Blade. A skill that allows me to stab deep into people with my bare hands. I aimed at his heart. Luke took a step back in time. I quickly closed the gap and used another skill Blood Control Shadowless Double Punch. I can deadly punch him 2 times with the same arm in an instant. But Luke managed to block my punches with 1 hand. He instantly punched me 8 times at that moment with his other hand. He must have used a blood control skill. Because of his metal gauntlets, I was bleeding all over my body. It wasn’t enough to kill me. I guessed that he wants to interrogate me for information. He is someone who specializes in punches, I was a fool for trying to fight him in his specialty.

Blood Control Shadowless Step - I retreated to another soldier carrying a dagger. I stole his dagger and used Blood Control Shadowless Swipe. Daggers were my specialty, so dagger blood control skills were my strongest. The soldier’s head went flying with blood spurting everywhere out of his neck.

“SOLDIERS KILL THE MAIDS!”

“ RUN MY FRIENDS!”

My friends all tried running past the soldiers but they were soon surrounded. Deadly attacks came flying at them. I wasn’t able to stop them. After killing the 14th soldier, all of my friends were killed. I tried my hardest to kill the soldiers aiming for them but Luke kept intercepting me.

This is bad, Luke is stronger than me. I need to find some way of beating him. Every time we exchanged blows, he is always landing 3 solid hits on me, and I can only give him shallow wound with my shadowless swipe. Because I am a Royal, who are known to have the strongest blood control skills which gave them the strongest body. I was able to endure Luke’s assault on my body that is losing blood from my countless punch marks. Sooner or later Luke and his soldiers will surround me and kill me.

“ SOLDIERS BLOCK ALL THE ESCAPE PATH! I WILL DEAL WITH THIS LAST TRAITOR MYSELF!”

This is my chance. If Luke and his soldier both fought me, I would surely lose. If Luke knew that I was a secret Royal, he most likely would have fought with his soldiers. If I can just kill Luke, none of his soldiers would have a chance of beating me.