The Peaceful Life of a Maid Who Hides Her Power and Enjoys It

Part 2 – Episode 26

Two days had passed since I arrived in Brisher and was taking a rest.

The hotel bell rang incessantly.

“Evacuate, everyone! This is an emergency. Evacuate the hotel immediately!”

The source of the sound was the corridor right beyond the door. Judging by the way the bell’s volume fluctuated, it seemed someone was running around with the bell in hand.

[Salmon Papillote.]

“Yeah, it’s a bit noisy. But it’s perfect for raising alertness.”

Ash, who was busy grooming his feathers, was perched on my shoulder, and as soon as I put the tired blue cat in my bag, someone knocked on the door with the force of breaking it down.

Bang, bang!

“Wake up, sir! We need to get out of the hotel immediately! There’s been a terrorist attack on the lower floors, hurry!”

After I heard some suspicious explosions, I was contemplating how to escape with Deschamps. Jump out of the window or break through the front door? Then, the bell rang just in time. The hotel’s response was really swift.

Deschamps, who looked greatly relieved as we set out of the door, stomped her feet and ran ahead.

“It seems there have been simultaneous terrorist attacks in three places within Brisher. I must go and assist with the evacuation!”

Deschamps seemed to be quite righteous.

“Does urban terrorism happen often?”

“Terrorism? Not in Penrotta, they usually happen in the republics. It’s probably because of the guild summit that’s been going on since this morning. It’s clearly their way of pushing back!”

Whose way of pushing back?

Deschamps seemed to be in a great hurry, so perhaps that’s why I didn’t feel like holding on to her and questioning her like a child, asking everything one by one.

“This way, please! You must evacuate quickly and calmly through the stairs, following our guidance!”

As I descended the stairs quickly and calmly on the hotelier’s advice, I listened quietly to the voices around me.

‘Rein… followers… are these so-called followers of Rein the ones who caused the terrorism?’

For that corpse-loving pervert to have followers… Indeed, if you’re going to go crazy, you might as well go all the way. Crazy people will follow other crazy people.

In the middle of descending the stairs, black smoke so thick it obscured the vision rose up.

“Everyone, don’t panic and run! Don’t try to get ahead of the others; put your hands on the back of the person in front of you and go down! Good, the pace is good now!”

Thanks to Deschamps taking charge of the situation, I was able to smash a window and send Ash flying out first.

Then, at one moment.

“Don’t move!”

“P, please spare me.”

“Everyone, stick to the wall now! Put your hands up to the ceiling. Hurry!”

After the threat of bombardment was heard, the people standing on the stairs began to stick to the walls one by one, accompanied by screams.

“Oh, Mommy…”

“It’s okay, baby. Nothing will happen. Come here. Hide between me and the wall.”

The hotelier tried to calm the people.

Carefully looking down the stairs, I saw armed men standing as if guarding the entrance to the passageway on the second floor below.

“From now on, if you move even one step, everyone will die, no exceptions: women, children, the elderly. Shut your mouths and don’t make a sound!”

“Hic, hic…”

Those who had been following from the upper floors, with frightened faces, turned back to the corridor.

Was there no other way?

I guessed it was time for the God of the Southern Continent to step in.

Just as I made up my mind.

A muscular giant flew from the side and landed at the entrance of the second-floor passageway below with a loud bang.

“Die!”

This word accompanying the attack was said by Deschamps, not the terrorist.

“Destroy!”

This too.

“Ha ha! Despair!”

This, as well.

The quick-witted hotelier did not miss the opportunity and began to evacuate the people.

I slipped through the gaps between the people who were being pushed out like a receding tide and followed Deschamps. The corridor was already a scene of chaos.

‘There’s no room for me to step in.’

As I scratched my head and watched the situation, waiting, I felt a pang of conscience. But it was too early to raise my fists.

“No! I’ll protect you at all costs, master! I won’t let a single drop of blood touch you!”

Deschamps’s defense was so thorough.

She was so thorough that she even raised her arms to defend against the flying blade of a sword. She wasn’t wearing ordinary clothing, it seemed. She had come prepared for an emergency.

“Master! These guys seem to have started this without proper self-defense magic tools! They could be strapped with bombs and charge at you recklessly, so avoid them…”

At that moment.

“Ri Arseniño Vahullatana Arien!”

It was an unfamiliar language.

Through the hazy smoke, I saw an old man dressed in black.

At first glance, his eyes seemed vacant, as if just for show. The old man, with round iron spheres attached to his chest and abdomen, shouted into the empty air.

“The god of disaster will take me to the garden of the universe!”

He ran without hesitation. It seemed that the situation Deschamps had warned about was about to unfold.

“No! Master!”

Amidst the cries of despair, I stood firmly on the ground, waiting for the old man.

Whether those spheres were truly explosives.

If they were explosives, whether it would be better to stop him rather than kill him.

If they were timed bombs, whether I should drag him to the window and throw him outside.

As I pondered over and over to draw out the best answer.

“It seems there’s been a lot of commotion while I was taking a short rest, Daisy.”

Whoosh-

A blue, translucent barrier generated in mid-air enveloped the old man.

“W-what is this!”

The panicked old man tried to wriggle free, but his elderly, withered bones were of no help.

The blue barrier quickly enveloped the old man’s entire body and soon began to compress him into a ball. The old man was gradually compressed into a smaller sphere until…

“Ri, Arseni, nyo…”

Leaving only a voice steeped in despair, he completely disappeared from sight.

Plop.

In the middle of the now quiet corridor, a blue cat sat on its haunches, licking its floppy pink palm and making a purring sound.

“Unfortunately, I seem to have missed some of the fun.”

“Rue!”

Kwang-

A huge explosion outside caused the hotel to shake for a moment. I instinctively realized.

‘He moved that terrorist into the sky.’

Hmm. As expected, the correct answer was to grab him gently and throw him out the window.

I approached Rue, picked up his soft body, and examined him with an anxious look.

“What the hell is wrong with your body? Do you know how worried I was because you just slept motionlessly since yesterday?”

Rue obediently let me hold him by his warm cat armpits and replied.

“If I had to drag around a problematic physical body, I wouldn’t have come with you, Daisy. If I had to say something was wrong, it would just be a bit of accumulated fatigue.”

“Fatigue? Why? Did you climb Aragald for half a year while I was asleep?”

“For you to say half a year when you looked like you were dying from climbing up and down for just a month. You are very generous with me indeed.”

The serious answer coming out of his mouth was unbearably cute in his cat face.

‘I guess he doesn’t want to talk about it seeing that he’s changing the topic.’

I’d ask again later, then.

When I put Rue down on the floor, my body had changed from Andert to that of a woman.

This unbelievable familiarity.

It was my original body.

“Why do you keep changing my appearance without permission?”

“Because the city seems to be in an uproar.”

When I looked at him with eyes asking what that had to do with anything, his golden eyes, like glass beads, turned into a cool, triangular shape.

“Andert Fager must always be the hero of everyone, right? It’s a very troublesome and inefficient name.”

His expression, which had become more openly fierce compared to before, as if jealous of everyone, prompted a sigh.

What hero. It seemed he didn’t know the level of Deschamps tourist filial piety.

 

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Woah, Rue is so right. Andert Fager will have to step in if something happens and play the part of a hero, getting himself in danger etc. Deschamps has got people wondering who’s the real terrorist in the building with her chants though