553: The Final Stretch
“K-kidnapped kids!?” the servant asked nervously only to earn a smack across the face that was lost in the screams that reverberated throughout the remaining fortress.
“Try to paly dumb with me again and I’ll gut you like a fish and just find someone else!” Olivia threatened and pulled out her kunai.
“T-the princess appropriated two whole floors for her theater and other games she plays with them!” the man hurriedly spat out.
“A princess? One of the Seven Sisters is here?” Olivia gasped.
“Eh? Oh, no! Ophelia battered our lord into going along with it and made everyone call her a princess… Or else…”
“Ophelia? Belmot’s daughter? Wait, what does she have to do with anything?” Olivia got confused. “Everyone knows that Belmot—the disgusting pig—is the one kidnapping all the kids for… For…”
“Lord Belmot collected many kids and teenagers, yes, but not for himself. And it was the princess that made sure to spread those abhorrent rumors about our dear lord.”
Olivia was left speechless for a moment. All her ire that had built against one of the most powerful lords in this city-NO! Olivia shook her head. This changes nothing!
“Is Emily among the kids?” Olivia asked and pressed the tip of the kunai against the man’s shirt.
“Who?”
*R-rip*
Olivia ripped the servant’s shirt and exposed his malnourished belly to the cold steel.
“I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know anyone by that naaaame!!” the man bawled. “If she’s one of the princess’s playthings, she’ll be there too. They’re never allowed out of there!”
“And they’re there even now!? Is that place still intact?”
“I—”
“Take me there at once!”
“Can you get someone—”
“Move it!”
One of the more diligent guards finally noticed an unknown assailant holding a knife to one of the servants in plant sight and drew his sword, but his conscientiousness was rewarded with a kunai in his throat.
“WAA-mpf!” the man cried before Olivia put her hand over his mouth.
“Last chance—take me to those kids quietly or die even slower than that guard,” Olivia whispered.
Seeing that no one else was there to help, the servant despondently obeyed. When they walked by the gurgling guard Olivia took back her kunai accelerating the deadly bleeding.
Belmot, Ophelia, their second cousin—doesn’t fucking matter which one of them took Emily, I’ll kill them all if I have to! Olivia thought as she hurried the servant up the stairs.
If what the man said was true, then at least one of Olivia’s nightmares could prove untrue. For a moment Olivia dared to hope that maybe her sister’s situation wasn’t as horrible as she had imagined. But the very next second she wanted to hit herself for the thought.
Who knows that she had to endure! Even if Belmot never put a hand on anyone…
“Ah, and here I imagined you walking in on your little sister beneath some big disgusting man five times her size! A pity!”
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY!?” Oliva yelled and pressed the kunai into the servant’s back.
“WWWAAAAAH!!! NOTHING!! I SAID NOTHING!! Please don’t kill me!!”
Huh? What the fuck? Olivia looked down and saw blood trickling from where her kunai and the man’s back connected. Thankfully, the blade barely got any farther than pricking the skin. For a moment, Olivia’s mind got blanked with rage and only on pure reflexes did she somehow stop her hand before she did serious damage.
“You’re walking too slow!” Olivia shoved the man ahead while trying to figure out what just happened. It didn’t even make sense for the man to say what she heard, so what the hell was that?
I probably hit my head harder than I thought, Olivia rationalized when she remembered her miraculous escape. She was the only survivor in an area where everyone else near her got crushed to death. There was no way I’d be lucky enough to escape completely unscathed. It only makes sense that I’d start hallucinating. After everything I’ve seen? No! What the hell are you doing Olivia!? Get a fucking grip! You’re at the finish line! Just a little more and we’ll be out of here! You hear me, Emily? Please be alive!
After sixth or seventh ascent, Olivia lost count of how many floors they had gone up. And this entire time they were the only ones going up among what few people they encountered. Obviously, most were sleeping when the collapse occurred, so swinging dicks and flopping tits were not uncommon. Only two people were aware enough to try and stop Olivia but with all the real fighting power drawn to the pits, Olivia had yet to encounter anyone who could even scratch her.
“Move it!! Can’t you do anything right!?” Olivia heard a girl’s voice coming from above.
The servant froze in place, visibly shaking. “It’s her,” he said with a trembling voice, turning pale.