Chapter 373: Embraced by Death
Alice leaned across a bench. She looked calm and relaxed, like she did not put too much effort into skimming the report in her hands. She read quickly, skimming all the reports and making decisions on priority issues. In fact, she had less work than before. Anfey had restored order in Moramatch. They did not have to spend a lot of time and effort on malicious competition at least. Everything seemed to be in order.
"Master." Kumaraghosha’s voice rose from outside.
"What is it?" Alice asked. Anfey had taken Alice’s advice to take Shinbella with him, and had left Kumaraghosha in Moramatch to protect her. Alice was concerned about having contact with Kumaraghosha. Kumaraghosha seemed to feel it as well. He showed more respect to Alice. Sometimes, respect meant keeping a distance. She did not know if Kumaraghosha did that on purpose, but she was not interested in figuring it out.
"General Hilgy has something urgent to tell you," Kumaraghosha said.
"General Hilgy?" Alice was shocked for a second and stood up immediately. "Please ask him in. Hurry up!"
General Hilgy walked into the yard, and Alice went out to welcome him. Hilgy commanded over 30,000 border guards in Blackania City. Alice dared not show any disrespect. She was surprised to see Hilgy with many armed guards and two wagons quickly fill the yard.
"General Hilgy, what are you...?" Alice asked.
"Master," Hilgy looked up with a bitter smile and tapped on the wagon.
The curtain of the wagon was lifted as a girl as beautiful as Alice, but displaying a different persona, stuck her head out of the wagon. Alice could not help gasping. "Miss Niya. What are you doing here?"
"Alice!" Niya smiled and jumped off the wagon. She looked around and asked quietly, "Where is Suzanna?"
More than a dozen people jumped from the wagon before Alice realized what had happened. Riska, Zubin, Sante, Hagan and other members from Alibaba mercenary group all had come to Moramatch. Alice was stunned and did not know what to say. She knew Moramatch was a dangerous place, so Anfey would never had agreed for them to come here.
"Alice, why are you not talking? Where is Suzanna?" Niya asked again.
"Don’t you know Ms. Suzanna went to Sacred City?" Alice said.
"Didn’t she come back yet?" Niya’s face suddenly changed.
"She would not be back so soon." Alice had a warm smile on her face. She had to keep them here and contact Anfey as fast as possible. She had no right to manage them, but she had to take care of them, because she would have to take responsibility if anything happened to them. "You guys must be tired. Come on in. Rest a little."
Niya did not have time to respond to Alice’s hospitality. Instead, she grabbed Alice’s arm. "Alice, what is happening? Are you sure Suzanna is not back yet?"
"I just told you Suzanna went to Sacred City. She would not come back so soon." Alice noticed something unusual.
"How could it be? She should be here already. She left a half day earlier than us." Niya looked worried.
"Did you see Ms. Suzanna?" Alice asked in surprise.
"Yes, Suzanna came back to Violet City the day before yesterday, but left that night," Riska said. "Alice, you cannot joke about it. Is Suzanna really not back yet?"
"How could I joke about this?" Alice shook her head with a bitter smile. "I thought Ms. Suzanna has been in Sacred City."
"Damn, Damn!" Niya was so worried that she stomped on the ground. Suzanna was the most disciplined in Alibaba mercenary group. Of course, this had to do with her training. Unlike others, Suzanna would not change her itinerary unless something unexpected had happened.
Like Niya, Riska and others did not look well. Suzanna was lost, so was the little unicorn. One was Anfey’s wife while the other one was Anfey’s baby. If anything happened to them, they could only imagine how upset and sad Anfey would feel.
"Don’t worry, don’t worry." Alice tried to comfort them. "Suzanna is a senior swordswoman. Even if something happened, she has the ability to protect herself. Try to think, did Ms. Suzanna say anything to you guys?" Capable people usually take on more responsibility. This made sense. Alice did not only have to control her emotions but also comfort everyone else. However, no one was taking care of Alice.
"Suzanna did not say anything. She said she would come back to Moramatch as fast as possible and then she left," Niya said.
Shally worriedly looked at them and then started crying. Even though she was an experienced swordsgirl, she was also Suzanna’s sister and a spoiled princess. People with different backgrounds and experiences acted differently.
"You guys do not have to worry about it." Besides Alice, General Hilgy was the most calm one. He said in a low voice, "I am going back to the station right now to prepare a search party." He was calm, but did not look too good. He knew the price some spy organizations had to pay to protect Suzanna’s mother. Could they let Suzanna walk away without paying anything? Personally, he liked Suzanna. He thought she was a quiet and polite girl. He could not have anything happen to her.
"Thank you, general," Alice said.
"Master, you do not have to thank me. This is my job." Hilgy waved his hand and walked out with his guards. He had no time to pay attention to courtesies.
"Kumaraghosha!" Alice called.
"Yes." Kumaraghosha straighten up.
"Tell Stein to take his fourth unit and leave right away. Can you go with them? No matter what it takes, we have to find Ms. Suzanna," Alice said.
"Yes, Master," Kumaraghosha said.
As Alice was giving orders, Suzanna was leaning against a tree, trying to take a breath to recover from losing so much energy. Her hair was messy and dirty, even mixed with some grass and leaves. Suzanna liked to be clean and tidy. She never forgot to clean herself even when she was on the run, which was the reason she had a life-threatening fight with Anfey. However, she really had no time to pay attention to her looks. She could not even sleep.
There were more than a dozen cracks in her upper armor, but the cracks were not long. The armor on her left leg was torn in half, showing her white skin and a red wound. The color contrast made it look scary. The little unicorn quietly lay next to her and licked Suzanna’s wounds.
Magic beasts would fight to protect their own territory. It was inevitable for magic beasts to get hurt. The wounded magic beasts usually would lick their wounds. This was their instinct. From the scientific point of view, there were enzymes in the saliva. These enzymes had a lot of benefits, such as to disinfect and speed up healing. Suzanna did not know any of this, but she found her wound had healed very fast and left no scar. The former effect allowed her to rejoin the battle while the latter allow her to continue to be beautiful. When it was only Suzanna and Anfey together, Anfey usually touched her skin and often complimented her on her skin. She did not want to change the way she looked.
When Suzanna had just entered Transverse Mountain, a few druids stopped her. They were nice at the beginning, trying to invite Suzanna to their house. She knew Bruzuryano, so she did not want to be mean to them. In addition, Suzanna had a good impression of the druids. However, she was worried about Anfey and did not want to go anywhere else. She firmly turned down their invitation. The druids had shown their true colors at the end.
Four of the druids turned into wild wolves, while the other two turned into Wind Wolves to assist the other four druids. A few senior elf shooters hid themselves. This combination left no chance for Suzanna to win this battle. If she fought, she would not be able to counter the attack from every angle. She thought about fleeing, but the arrows the senior elves shot out shattered her escape plan.
Suzanna did not understand why druids would attack her. Weren’t they allies? As a senior swordswoman, she was not afraid of danger, or even death. What bothered her was that she could not pass this warning to Anfey and lost the opportunity to spend the rest of her life with Anfey.
As Suzanna thought there was no chance for her to survive, the angry little unicorn rushed into the battle. A young magic beast did not know how to protect himself or judge how strong the enemies were. However, the little unicorn dare to fight them. He threw himself at the Wild Wolves, protecting Suzanna from their Wind Blades, sharp claws, flying arrows, or anything that could hurt her. He used his weak body to keep death away from Suzanna.
The little unicorn was not strong, but unicorns were the legendary rides of God of Nature and enjoyed high status among the followers of God of nature. Anyone who hurt holy beasts would get cursed by the God of Nature. It was taboo for the followers to hurt unicorns.
Suzanna was experienced in fights, so she grabbed the opportunity to escape. She grabbed the little unicorn and ran out, but prospects were not bright. Druids had strong tracking ability in the forests. They closely chased after her and even cut down the route to Moramatch. She was forced to run north. As a result, she was getting further away from Moramatch.