Chapter 647: Escape?
[Couple of Hours Earlier]
Thud!
“Ow!”
Lillian rubbed her rear with a pained expression, watching as a maid walked around her to the window.
Elara sighed as she pulled down the glass pane and closed the curtains. She then looked back at Lillian before flicking her finger up.
The Rabbit, still nursing her rear, felt the gravity lighten around her—lifting her up from the ground and onto the bed.
“You really must cease your efforts for escape, Miss Lillian.” Elara stated, bringing over a cup of tea she had set off to the side.
After being handed the teacup, Lillian sighed again with an annoyed expression; this was already her third escape attempt in the past half an hour.
“Can’t you just let me go? I’m perfectly fine! The little drowsiness I had is already gone.”
The Maid shook her head as she tidied up the mess caused by Lillian’s escape attempt. “If it was up to me, I would consider it. However, this is an order from the mistress. If you don’t rest, the Lady wouldn’t be only upset with you, but also with me aswell. Please think about my situation.”
‘But I seriously need to leave!’ Lillian thought.
After watching Elara finish cleaning and leave, Lillian flopped back on the bed, growing even more stressed.
“Uugh, how do I leaveee…!?” Lillian groaned loudly.
Since waking up an hour ago, all she had done was practically nothing—apart from a singular room, all she was allowed to do was wander around inside the mansion.
‘Apparently, it’s going through a clean-up, and everyone didn’t want my condition to worsen due to the mess.’ Lillian stared up at the ceiling with blank eyes. ‘I don’t even think that room was ever used yesterday…’
Contrary to Lillian’s belief, that room had definitely been used before; more specifically, by Marionette for immoral things that only the Assassin could justify.
Lillian shook her head and sighed inside, unaware of the suffering the trapped nobles were going through. Instead, she pulled herself up into a seated position.
With her legs over the side of the bed, Lillian looked towards the door.
‘Elara isn’t here… Maybe, I can try to escape again!’
After waiting for a few more minutes, Lillian got up to her feet and made her way over to the window.
Lillian gently pulled apart the curtains and raised the glass pane.
Shnk.
The girl cringed at the sound made and subtly turned back at the door. Once she was certain that no one would suddenly burst in, she turned her face back around.
Fwoosh…
With the turn of her head, the fresh air from outside wafted against her face, causing anticipation to stir inside her heart.
Simply put, while Lillian definitely wanted to go after Marionette, she wanted to do it in a more peaceful and less destructive manner.
Causing trouble and gathering attention wouldn’t benefit her much.
As Lillian was about to jump out the window—
“Sigh… Just step away from the window.”
—Elara just so happened to have returned.
The Rabbit glanced back, stiffening with a wry smile as she saw the Maid stand with her arms folded.
‘She isn’t making a move to step me?’ Lillian blinked with confusion.
Elara gave Lillian a patient look and politely gestured for her to step away. “As long as you step away now, I won’t be forced to get rough with you. I’m sure you’re getting tired with being thrown around now, aren’t you?”
‘That’s true…’ Every attempt Lillian had made for escape was always thwarted by being thrown away from her exit.
‘But it’ll be different this time.’ Lillian narrowed her eyes petitively, causing Elara to respond with the same expression; sparks of tension lit between the two.
Fwshmm!
With a quick turn, Lillian moved to rush out the window, gripping the frames to pull herself out quickly.
Elara immediately sighed, reacting to Lillian’s actions in a millisecond. With no time to say anything, she swiped her hand down in the air.
C-crack! Crush!
Lillian, who had leveraged herself onto the windowsill, felt the frame for the glass pane suddenly crack and snap under her; soon, along with parts of the wall the window was on, Lillian became buried under rubble.
Walking over, Elara kept her hand raised towards Lillian, who was lying flat on her stomach with a cloud of dust hovering above her.
By increasing the gravity around Lillian, Elara had forced the girl into the position.
“I respect your perseverance to return to the Lady’s side, but you must know when to give up. Your reckless stubbornness will one day e to bite you, Miss Lillian.”
Now standing over Lillian, Elara asked:
“I’ll now give you two options. It’s either I keep you like this for as long as I have mana, or I can let you go if you promise to stop all your future attempts at escape.”
“…”
After a few moments of silence, Lillian eventually answered.
“How about the third option?”
“Third option? There isn’t one—”
Before Elara could fully respond, Lillian had spun around and fired a beam of water from her hand.
SPLASH!
The water smashed against Elara’s face, causing her to close he eyes and lose sight of Lillian. But while wiping her face, she continued to have her hand raised in the girl’s direction.
“Now where was the need for that—…?”
After cleaning her face, she opened her eyes and was left baffled by what she saw.
Lillian was no longer in front of her!
“Impossible!”
Immediately running to the edge of the collapsed wall, Elara looked outside and discovered that Lillian was nowhere to be seen. The frantic passerbyers were also as shocked as she was.
‘I’m certain the increased gravity was still affecting her, how’d she escape?!’ Elara panicked as she floated to the rooftop. ‘She couldn’t have gotten far, I must catch her before Lady know of this!’
The thought of attracting the Lady’s ire was something that mustn’t happen at all costs!
She quickly sprinted off, leaping from rooftop to rooftop for Lillian, but unknowingly, she had already passed by the girl.
⚬──────────✧──────────⚬ 1
‘That actually worked! It actually worked!’ Lillian laughed heartily inside as she watched Elara leap over a balcony she was hiding in; more specifically, inside a large plant pot.
After escaping outside, Lillian immediately morphed herself into water and hid inside the dirt in the pot.
A part of her had expected Elara to immediately catch on.
‘Maybe, I caught her so off guard that she forgot to check the surroundings.’
After making sure Elara wasn’t still around hiding, Lillian slipped out from the pot and leapt down into an alleyway. Once she regained human form, she couldn’t help but let out a cheeky chuckle.
‘She must’ve been so shocked when her magic didn’t work.’
In reality, the increased gravity Elara had pressed down on Lillian didn’t affect the girl one bit. The reason was all because of Lillian’s newest handy harpoon.
[Acus Maris].
Looking down at the Acus Mark on the centre of her palm, Lillian grinned like a gremlin; the mark granted four benefits. The most relevant benefit in this situation was how it granted its wielder immunity to crushing pressure.
“Pressure, by definition, refers to a force pushing down against a surface. And that gravity from earlier was definitely crushing, hehe.” Lillian snickered out loud, casually walking between homes and through alleyways.
In truth, this plan of hers wouldn’t have worked without a few things in place first.
The main reason was obviously the presence of the [Acus Mark]. The second reason was how Elara was unaware of Lillian’s immunity to pressure.
‘To think not once did she try to crush me… Well, she kind of did, I guess.’ Lillian clutched one of her arms, remembering how seriously injured it had been from Elara’s gravity sneak attack. ‘But it was more like she really hard to where it looked like it got crushed.’
Lillian learned two things from this. One, she wasn’t immune to being flung and pulled around; second, as long as it’s pushing down on her, she should theoretically be fine.
‘Another round of tests would help, but that’s after I get through this day alive.’
With a satisfied smile on her face, Lillian turned around a corner. After another minute of walking, she finally arrived at her destination.
Standing outside a three-story-tall mansion, Lillian’s eyes glistened a bit.
‘To think I’m now able to buy a home similar to one of these…’
With a brief, painful remembrance of her past life, the Rabbit felt a deep sense of surrealism when she recalled how much she currently had in her bank account.
‘I wonder if Marionette likes big houses like these, or maybe ones situated far out in the countryside.’ Lillian thought to herself as she walked through the gate. ‘Wait, maybe she likes living in the city, because it’s convenient—ah, but it’s a bit noisy… So, maybe the countryside? I should really ask her at some point…’
Feeling a little bashful by the sudden thoughts, Lillian wildly shook her head before reaching the door. When she was finally calm, she knocked.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Later, when a few moments had passed, someone came to answer the door.
A tall, tanned woman with long, braided brunette hair, green eyes, and a white and dark-blue uniform. She looked to be in her thirties and was rather attractive in the eyes of passersby.
“Hm?” The Servant hummed, “Do you have business here? What is it that you want? Were you sent from the Darkhound estate?” She asked bluntly, which caused Lillian to smile wryly.
Lillian coughed into her fist before asking:
“Well, I just wanted to know how Aurelia is doing.”
Looks like the ‘Stop’ Lillian spoke about earlier was actually Aurelia’s place! I hope she’s doing alright because of what happened yesterday.
Reviews
All reviews (0)