Chapter 172 – Vol.3 epilogue

The loud sound of breaking things spread around the McDaniels mansion outdone only by the volume of hysterical screams of Countess McDaniels. One after another loud thuds of things hitting the floor followed the noise of shattered glass.

It lasted for a few minutes until Madam of the family swung open the doors to her room storming out of it with a face red from anger.

"Sophia! Sophia!" Screamed the Countess into the hall.

"Yes, Madam?" Answered the maid quickly walking up the stairs to the Countess' call.

"Find me the information about that Duchess Threadweaver and how to contact her. Who the hell is she even? I never even heard of her before! How could that little…" She stopped before saying the words as she looked at other servants who looked into the hall from the first floor with scared faces.

"Do you all have no work, that you all stand gawking?!" She shouted at the servants and everyone ran away from the hall.

"Find me a way to contact her and Noah!"

"Yes, madam." Said the maid and walked away

The Countess walked back to the ruined room with not a single thing, except a chair and table, left unharmed, and plunged into her seat with a crumpled newspaper on the table. On one of the pages, she saw an article about a Coming of Age Ball organized by Duchess Vespertine for her beloved nieces, Priscilla and Brianna Threadweaver who attended the ball accompanied by a young handsome Count McDaniels that is visiting the Duchess Threadweaver household.

"How?! How?!" She hissed through clenched teeth as she looked at the picture of her son-in-law.

"That son of a bitch McAlister!" She grumbled jumping up from her seat and stormed out of the room again.

She walked into the room where the maid was currently dialing different contact sigils on the far-talking device and stopped her.

"Leave! I need to call." She ordered and grabbed the device out of her hands.

"Yes, madam." Said Sophia standing up and bowing slightly before quickly leaving the room. Madam did not even glance in her direction as she started to use the device immediately and did not notice that the maid left the door slightly ajar listening to her Madam from behind the door.

It took a while before the connection was established as if the one whom Countess called was not in a hurry to answer her call.

"So this is how you want to do it, McAlister?" Shouted Countess into the device as soon as her call was answered.

"What do you mean by that?" Answered the cold voice from the device.

"I saw the article! You think you can set me up like that? You think that bitch, you sent him to, can protect him? They will know! Mark my word you son of a bitch."

"That is what I wanted to tell you." Said the voice of the McAlister family head.

"What?!" Said Countess. "Don't give me that bullshit! He is alive! ALIVE! You son of a bitch. You lied to me, lied to them! You think they will forgive that treason? You took their hand and then bit it like that?"

"Stop!" Said the voice finally losing his temper. "I have nothing to do with it! I played along with your act to not start an all-out war with you. But do you really want to act this way after shitting the plan?"

"What the fuck are you spouting you bastard? Have you gone senile?" Asked, Countess.

"You honestly telling me you are unaware of why he is alive?" Asked the man, confusion seeping into his voice.

"What? You bastard! Tell me then! What did I do wrong? What was not enough for you? I gave you everything! I gave you all of myself. I thought you were different, I thought you were not like him. I thought you were better than that cold bastard of a husband of mine. Why? Why would you do it? What was not enough for you?" Screamed Countess, her voice betraying her, tears starting to fall down her cheeks.

Silence settled as she ended her tirade starting to sob.

"Milli…" said the man from the other side of the device, making her jerk from hearing that name. She was only ever called this way by him and only in bed. "You really don't have anything to do with it?"

"What? Your Goddamn Son was the one tasked with it! He was there! What are you talking about?"

"I…I thought it was your doing…Milli."

"Why would I…?" She said, bellowing with sobs.

"I will be there immediately, honey. We need to talk!"

"Why? I don't want to see you, you asshole."

"No baby. Listen to me. There is some big misunderstanding, baby. I was a fool, baby. I am sorry. I am already coming. Wait for me."

A few hours later and just a few minutes after the McAllister household master rushed into the McDaniels mansion, the master bedroom was filled with screams of Countess Kamilla McDaniels. Only these screams sounded like an orgasm.

*****

The Saintess sat in her office skimming through the reports when her hand, which was about to turn the page over, stalled and she turned the page back, reading the contents over carefully once more time. She put that report in front of the stack of reports and started to turn back pages listing the wide stack of already checked reports until she found another report and took it out of the stack, putting it in front of the stack as well.

She looked at the two reports in front of her for a few seconds, her eyes skipping from one paper to another, before she started to list through the stack of papers again. A minute later she found among the still unread reports one more paper that piqued her interest. She put it in front of herself with the other two papers and sat thoughtfully watching the three papers over several times before reclining back into the backrest of the chair.

She sat this way for some time in total silence as her eyebrows slowly creased more and more with concern showing on her face.

"Is something bothering you, My Lady?" Asked the voice out of the shadows.

"Ask Trisha to come over." Said Holy Lady without answering.

A few dozen seconds later shadows moved in the room and Shadow Squad Commander covered in all black appeared in front of Saintess.

"How may I help, My Lady?" Asked Trisha.

"What is this?" Asked Saintess, turning one of the reports toward the Commander.

Trisha came over and read the report before her eyes creased.

"This…it must be some kind of mistake, My Lady I will speak that…" Started to say Commander apologetically.

"No." Said Saintess, turning a second and then a third reports to Commander as well. "It is possible that there is no mistake here. Reports were meant to be seen by me."

As Trisha read the second report her eyebrows creased. She looked between two reports a few times before looking back at Holy Lady.

"I don't understand. You think this is some provocation?" Asked Trisha confused.

"Three different High families ask to check the supply of some commodities. But not different commodities. They are concerned about one and the same thing. Why the hell would they send such a request to Central Cathedral? Commodity quality concern? Bullshit. No one ever reported this kind of crap to me. There are other ministries that deal in this sphere. Why here? Why send a concern request to me?" She said thoughtfully. "Look at their requests. They phrase it in almost identical words as if copied from each other. What for?"

"One of them asks about the supply of Bullmen milk that is used in the poor-quality potions. The other asks about the very potion itself." Said Trisha. "Maybe there was some bad quality of shipment?" Said Trisha with uncertainty in her voice.

"Then why the third report is a concern about declining amount instead of quality? Was there a decline reported by the ministry?"

"I don't believe so. I never heard of it." Said Trisha."

"Then this doesn't make sense even more." Said Saintess.

"If I may, My Lady." Said the voice from a shadow.

"Speak." Said Saintess.

"I believe there was a report about some disturbance in Bullmen clans in Guidstar Kingdom a few weeks ago."

"The incident with Bullmen fights? The report said it was a minor incident. They solved the issue." Said Trisha.

"Unless it was not such a minor issue as they reported. What do we know about these high families? Where do they have businesses?" Asked, Holy Lady.

"I believe all three are strongly connected with the Moonstar Kingdom." Said the voice from the shadow.

"Moonstar? In the West? That's the furthest damn place from Bullmen. I understand if some families connected with East or at least South were the ones to report it. How the hell would Moonstar in the west know of it before others?"

"Indeed. If that was the case then other families would be the first to report it. Unless their real concern is not any of these things." Holy Lady conjectured tapping the table with her index finger. "Unless they are trying to warn us of something else without raising suspicions and alarms."

"Warn us about what?" Asked Trisha.

The Saintess looked at the reports once more and her eyes widened.

"Wait. You said all three are dealing with Moonstar? But Moonstar never gets the raw milk. They are too far away. They only import processed products that do not go bad so quickly. Why would this family be concerned about raw product quality?" Asked Saintes turning her eyes toward Trisha.

"They know something. Something is going on and they are afraid to attract too much attention. This is meant to be a warning to us, they reported it directly to me to attract attention. But what could concern three High Families this much? Send shadows to the three families today. Let them contact family heads silently and find out what they want. And send a squad to Guidstar. I am afraid something serious is going on in the East that we did not see in reports."

"Yes." Sait Shadow Commander and disappeared in shadows.

"My Lady, the squad from Moonstar has just returned. Would you wish to hear their report?" Asked the voice from the shadow behind the Saintess a few minutes later.

"Yes, send them to the meeting room." Said Holy Lady standing up and walking out of the office.

She walked through the halls in quick steps walking into the meeting room where five people were waiting for her standing. Trisha stood at the side of the room with her hands behind her back.

The Saintess looked them over as the guards outside the room closed the door behind her and went to the couch. As she sat Shadow Commander stood behind her back with a gloomy face.

"My Lady! The failure is on me! I will take responsi…" Started to say the squad captain

"Sit down, girls." Interrupted her Holy Lady.  "You've been on the move for so long, you deserve a rest." She added, beckoning the shadow squad captain to sit as well.

Captain sat on the very edge of the couch followed by other team members. They all seemed to be quite nervous to even look her in the eyes and their gazes slipped at Trisha behind the Saintess from time to time as if looking for her approval.

"Samples?" Said Sainteas calmly.

Captain immediately took out two small white crystals from the pocket ring, putting them on the table almost with frantic moves

The Saintess took one of them studying it carefully before closing eyes, feeling the energy inside.

"This confirms it." Said Holy Lady sighing and passing the sample to Trisha. "The divine energy footprint is no doubt mine."

Trisha took the crystal and studied it as well. Smoke-like tentacles entwined the crystal for a few seconds before she released her skill and passed the crystal back.

"Indeed, My Lady." She confirmed the Holy Lady's words.

Saintess took the second crystal and studied it as well. This time however her eyebrows creased as her face scrunching as if she felt disgusted with what she felt. She threw the crystal back on the table and sat with a dark face.

"Same bastard we failed to capture in the North. This time he preyed on the children. That's why we didn't hear about him for so long. He pretended to be a bishop of the church." She said with anger.

"Tell me all that happened." Said Holy Lady listening for a few minutes to the report of the shadows squad captain.

"I see. All traces that you could follow were erased by my divine energy that purified the whole area. And Investigator?"

"Wasn't quite interested to follow anyone or share his findings. Once he studied everything for a few days he simply returned back." Said Captain.

"Alright, you all can go rest. Thank you. And no, I don't consider this as your failure. You did all that could be done. You all did well." Said Holy Lady standing up from the couch and all five women jumped up from the seats right after her, bowing deeply.

The Saintess turned to walk away but then froze for a second. With a quick move swirled back to look at the five women studying them and saw traces of fear appearing on their surprised faces. Then her eyes skipped to one of the five women. The one that reported to engage in a fight with a butler named Vernon from the auction house of Black Market.

As Trisha saw Holy Lady's actions her eyes squinted and her muscles tensed up as she got ready to lunge at any moment.

Five women stopped even breathing when Saintess walked over to them with a grim face. But the next moment they saw that she passed their team member and stretched her hand to the side of her in a grabbing motion. It looked like the Holy Lady tried to grab something in the empty air and failed, surprise exchanging her serious face.

"Is..s..som..something wrong, My Lady?" Asked Captain stuttering.

After hearing her words, Holy Lady straightened and turned around with a calm face again.

"Forgive me. I thought I saw a bug."  Said Holy Lady and walked away, leaving the room.

Five women looked at Trisha as if searching for answers from her but Commander just waved her hand sending them all off and sank into the shadow herself.

Holy Lady walked through the halls passing closed doors and guard on her way back to the office, but suddenly stopped turning around, quickly looking over the room hall. But all she saw were the guards that straightened even straighter as they thought they somehow attracted her attention with their bad postures. Saintess stood studying the hall, her eyes skipping from side to side for a few seconds, before she breathed out and turned around to walk again.

The guards in the hall breathed out in relief but did not dare relax until the Saintess entered her office.

As Saintess walked back into her office she walked to the table but the swirled around again and made that grabbing motion that she did in the meeting room, as if trying to catch something from the air at the level of her waist. But her hand that shone with slight golden light simply passed through the empty air.

"Is something wrong, My Lady?" Asked Trisha showing up from the shadow in the corner of the room.

"No." Said Saintess. "There is nothing." She added sitting down behind the table. "There is absolutely nothing." She muttered.

*****

"She can sense it." Said Yuko within Noah's mind realm. "She knows someone is watching her."

"I would be disappointed if she couldn't." Said Ugy as he gazed at the TV screen that showed the "Lock On" view of Noah's "Change view" skill.

It showed the scene of the Holy Lady sitting behind the desk reading through the paper reports.

It was a result of Noah's move inside the Black Market a week ago. After the fight with a Shadow Squad member, he left the screen spying on her open for the entire week until she finally met with Saintess a moment ago. At that time he changed the target to Saintess, now having a way to spy on her.

"Isn't this dangerous?" Asked Yuko.

"This is a justified risk. We need to have a way to her, now that the previous bridge is gone. But I have thought of a countermeasure in case she tries something funny." Said Ugy.