The silence I expected never came. Instead, the wind caught the lime dust, tearing the white veil away far sooner than I had planned. The courtyard was suddenly laid bare under the moonlight, and I was standing right in the center of the wreckage, my hands still white with the powder from the bolt I had pulled.
I looked up. The orange glow of torches from the watchtowers illuminated the notched arrows of three archers. They weren't looking at the accident, they were looking directly at me.
"That's the maid! She's the one who pulled the pin! She destroyed the scaffolding! Skin her!"
The sound of three bowstrings drawing taut hissed through the air.
"RUN!" Roxy, they're zeroing in! Get out of the kill zone!" Harold's voice exploded in my ear, so loud I winced.
I didn't wait to see the arrows fly. I pivoted on my heel, the long skirt of Clara's dress snagging on the splintered wood of the collapsed structure. I heard the thrum-thrum-thrum of the releases.
"Damn, that maid got away."
An arrow buried itself into the wooden crate inches from my thigh, vibrating with lethal force. I scrambled toward the stone archway of the service entrance, my lungs burning as I forced Clara's untrained body to move with the desperation of a cornered animal.
"Alert the Captain! We have an infiltrator in the servant's quarters!"
I dove through the heavy oak door just as a second volley of arrows clattered against the stone frame. I slammed the door shut and threw the heavy iron bolt, my chest heaving. The disguise was blown. The invisible maid was now the most wanted woman in the manor.
"Mochi, change of plans! The front door is open, but the 'ghost' is dead! It's about to get loud!"
I gasped into the earpiece, leaning my back against the door as the guards began to hammer on the other side.
I looked down at my hands, flesh and bone, trembling with adrenaline. I needed my steel. I needed to act.
"Harold, give me an exit! I'm trapped in the hellhole!" I yelled,
My heart hammered against my ribs, each thud a reminder that I was trapped in a cage of stone and iron. The Clara body was weak, its lungs burning from the sprint, and the weight of the mission felt like it was crushing me.
"All the gates are blocked, Roxy! The courtyard is a kill zone. Several bandits are guarding every exit. You can't escape now!"
"Well, what should I do?"
"Hide in the manor! It's four stories high, thousands of rooms. Use your shapeshifting to vanish into the walls. Become someone else before they corner you!"
I didn't wait. I bolted for a staircase, hearing the heavy, rhythmic thud of bandit boots echoing behind me. I dove through a set of double doors into a lavish hallway and slammed into a woman who looked like she belonged in a different world than the one I had just come from.
"Goodness gracious Clara! Why you're messy all of a sudden."
She was tall, blonde, and impeccably dressed in a high-collared version of the maid's uniform, her face twisted in a look of supreme disgust as my "filthy" hands grabbed her shoulders.
This was the Head Housekeeper.
"Clara! Get your filthy hands off me this instant! You'll be whipped for…"
I didn't let her finish. I lunged forward, my teeth baring. I needed a taste. I bit down on her forearm, just enough to draw a single, hot drop of blood. The metallic tang hit my tongue, and the rush of genetic data flooded my senses.
[DNA copied you can shapeshift into Elodie Petit]
The woman's eyes rolled back in her head, and she slumped forward, fainting from the sheer shock and terror of the assault
[Analyzing genetic data... 100% match found in blood reservoir. Commencing Morphological Shift.]
The transition was violent and fast. My bones lengthened, my hair grew into a polished blonde mane, and the weary, malnourished frame of Clara Becker transformed into the elegant, authoritative figure of the head of the household. Since our uniforms were virtually identical in color, the transition was seamless.
During
[Visual confirmation: 100% accuracy. Heart rate, scent, and vocal cords successfully calibrated. Successfully shapeshifted into Elodie Petit ]
I dragged her limp body into a nearby supply closet, shoving her behind stacks of expensive linens and turning the key in the lock.
Just as the heavy footsteps of the bandits rounded the corner, I straightened my collar and looked down at the brass ID pinned to my chest.
Elodie Petit.
The bandits skidded to a halt, their swords drawn and their faces red with exertion. They looked at me, the stern, beautiful woman standing calmly in the hall and then looked past me into the empty corridor.
"Where is she? Where's that rat, Clara? She came this way!"
I narrowed my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest with the perfect, icy authority of a woman who ran this manor with an iron fist.
"Are you shouting at me in my own hallway? That girl ran toward the East Wing. If you weren't so slow, you might have caught her instead of dripping sweat on my rugs."
The bandits blinked, intimidated by the sheer coldness of my stare.
"Sorry, Ma'am Elodie. East Wing! Move out!"
They thundered away, their boots fading into the distance. I leaned against the wall, my heart slowly returning to a normal rhythm. Suddenly, Mochi's voice whispered in the earpiece.
"Roxy, report, Did you make it?"
"Clara is dead, Elodie Petit is on duty. And as the Head Housekeeper, I believe I have the keys to the master's bedroom."
I fumbled through the silk-lined pockets of the head housekeeper's uniform, my fingers closing around a heavy, ornate brass key.
Engraved on the bow in elegant script was Floor 4-D.
"Mochi, I have it. The key to the inner sanctum. Callus's bedroom is on the fourth floor. I'm moving to…"
"..."
"Surprise, Roxy."
The voice didn't come from the earpiece. It was a cold, velvet-smooth whisper right against the shell of my ear. My blood turned to ice.
"Roxy, look out!"
"Ahhh…"
Before I could even turn my head, a massive, unseen force slammed into my midsection.
"Die you little flea!"
The punch was like being hit by a galloping horse. I felt my ribs groan and the air explode from my lungs as I was sent hurtling backward. I crashed through a lath-and-plaster wall, the wood splintering behind me as I tumbled into a darkened side-parlor.
I lay in the wreckage, gasping for air. I coughed, a spray of crimson staining the white lace of Elodie's collar. Focus, I snarled at myself. I reached into my mana core, activating my Pain Manipulation.
The white-hot agony in my gut didn't vanish, but it went numb, dulling into a distant, manageable throb that allowed me to stand.
I looked up through the hole in the wall. The air shimmered, and like a ghost fading into reality, Dominik appeared.
He was exactly as I remembered him from the Flower manor, yet somehow more terrifying in his own home. He wore the high-collared nobleman's suit I had obsessed over, the very one I had tried to mimic. It fit his broad shoulders with lethal elegance, the dark fabric absorbing the torchlight.
"Oh, look at you,"
Dominik mocked, stepping over the debris. He tilted his head, a cruel smirk playing on his lips as he looked at the face of the head housekeeper.
"You really think a change of skin can hide the stench of a common rat? I watched you play Clara. I watched you eat that filth in the manger. It was quite the performance, really. I almost felt sorry for those imaginary five children."
He laughed, a dry, melodic sound that chilled me more than the wind in the courtyard.
"You come into my house, you wear the face of my staff, and you think you're a hunter? You're just a girl playing dress-up with ghosts. Tell me, Roxy... does wearing Elodie's face make the blood in your mouth taste any sweeter? Or does it just remind you that you'll never be anything more than a parasite?"
I stood my ground, my golden-blonde hair disheveled and covered in plaster dust, my eyes, Elodie's eyes burning with a hatred that was all my own.
"You like to talk, Dominik, But I've already unlocked your door. The hero doesn't need to be invited in."
I wiped the blood with my hands, The impact of Dominik's presence was suffocating, but I wouldn't let the fear paralyze me.
Reaching into the open wound in my gut, I drew out a stream of crimson, molding it with my mana until a glowing Blood Bow materialized in my hands.
"Playing games, Roxy. That bow of yours isn't gonna work on me."
I loosed three arrows in rapid succession, the projectiles whistling through the air like screaming spirits. Dominik didn't even flinch. He simply raised his hands, the moonlight catching the cruel glint of his gold-plated brass knuckles. With terrifying, fluid precision, he snatched the arrows out of the air, crushing the crystallized blood into dust between his fingers.
"Confidence is a curious thing, Roxy, It gives the weak the illusion of height. But here in Tata, under the Bronze Coin... confidence is just another debt you can't afford to pay."
Then, he vanished. Not a fade, not a blur, just total, absolute invisibility.
I didn't panic. I collapsed the bow, the blood reconfiguring into a heavy, blood sword. I closed my eyes, shutting out the deceptive silence of the hallway.
I relied on Pure Prediction. I calculated his stride, the weight of his footsteps on the loose floorboards, and the displacement of the stagnant air.
There.
I spun around, channeling every ounce of my mana into a horizontal parry just as Dominik materialized behind me, his fist coiled for a devastating jab.
The metal of his brass knuckles collided with my blood-blade. For a heartbeat, the world stood still. Then, the unexpected happened. My sword, forged from my own essence and reinforced by my rage it shattered.
"You flea, you never learn, aren't you?"
The force was astronomical. A massive shockwave erupted from the point of impact, the sheer kinetic energy bypassing my guard. I felt my feet leave the ground as the blast wave threw me backward with the force of a siege engine.
I soared down the length of the fourth-floor hallway, a blur of blonde hair and grey lace, before slamming into a pedestal at the far end. A massive porcelain vase, likely worth more than Clara's slum-house, shattered against my spine, the shards cutting into my back as I slumped to the floor amidst the debris and stagnant water.
The world spun. My Pain Manipulation was struggling to keep up with the trauma. I coughed, more blood spattering the white porcelain shards around me.
"A sword made of your own life? How poetic. And how easily broken."
I looked up, my vision blurring, as the red-haired monster stepped over the shards of my broken sword, his brass knuckles gleaming like predatory eyes in the dark.
The porcelain shards dug into my back, but I forced my consciousness to dive deep into my nervous system. I seized the screaming nerves in my spine and silenced them with Pain Manipulation, turning the agony into a cold, hollow void. I hauled myself up, my hands trembling as I drew fresh blood from my wounds. The crimson fluid spiraled and hardened into a second sword, jagged, dark, and fueled by the raw desperation of my soul.
Dominik didn't stop. He stepped over the fragments of the vase, his polished boots clicking rhythmically on the stone. He looked at me with a sickeningly bored expression, as if I were a bug that refused to be crushed.
"Look at you, clutching your little red toys, You have the audacity to be angry? You stood in that kitchen and ate like a dog while those girls, the ones you pretend to represent, rot from the inside out. You didn't save them. You watched them suffer just to keep your pathetic skin intact. You're not their savior, Roxy. You're just another predator in a different dress. In fact, I think I'll have the guards line them up tomorrow and tell them exactly who let their friend Clara disappear. I wonder who they'll hate more, me, or the coward who used them as a shield?"
He raised his gold-plated fist, the mana-disruptors humming with a lethal light.
"I'm going to break every bone in that borrowed body, and then I'm going to make the real Elodie watch while I… "
A sudden, blinding flash of silver light cut through the dim hallway, severing Dominik's sentence mid-breath.
A heavy, metallic thud echoed as a figure dropped from the vaulted ceiling, landing perfectly between me and the monster in the nobleman's suit. The newcomer's longsword was already unsheathed, the blade shimmering with an ethereal, luminous glow that pushed back the shadows of the manor. Golden cat ears flickered beneath a silver helm, and a long, furred tail lashed with suppressed fury.
I leaned against the wall, my breath hitching in my chest as I recognized the fierce silhouette of the Luminous Knight.
"M-Mochi..." I muttered, the name barely a rasp.
Mochi didn't turn back. He kept his eyes locked on Dominik, his blade leveled at the villain's throat. The air around him crackled with a righteous, golden energy that made the floorboards vibrate.
"You've had your fun, Dominik, Don't you dare lay another hand on my friend's sister."