Noctis Palace
Capital City Geirsa
Sanguinia Empire
Dark Continent
June 1st
Year 1053
'I feel like hitting something, preferably a living being.'
Such were the thoughts that abruptly entered the mind of a certain teenage silver-haired beauty, as she walked down the halls of this majestic castle.
'They called these 'Intrusive Thoughts', didn't they?'
Her crimson eyes had a faraway look in them as she moved, barely paying any attention to the six people who were walking along with her.
"Lady Griselda, have you heard of the new salon that opened up downtown? Word around is that they are sponsored by the Tanith Clan.
Wouldn't you like to take a look sometime?"
"Mhmm…Okay"
"I hope you've researched that place thoroughly, lest you dare bring Lady Griselda to a place unworthy of someone of her status."
"Yes…do that."
The girl gave them short absent-minded replies, with her full focus being on the sleeves of her ebony-coloured dress and wondering if she should have them adjusted.
'Am I losing weight?'
Just as she thought that, she sensed a familiar presence around the corner and looked up just in time to meet eyes with one of the people who came around.
Like her, this older woman possessed silver hair and crimson eyes; but her hair was far longer and had lots of curls at the tips.
Though she had lovely facial features, her facial expressions were not too different from a doll's.
The instant she appeared, the lot who were chattering around Griselda went silent and they lowered their heads in respect, with Griselda being the only daring to meet her eyes.
"Good afternoon, Matriarch."
"Mhmm…"
The older woman acknowledged her with just a nod, seemingly more interested in the report that the aide beside her was giving.
However, when she passed right by Griselda, her hand stretched out and patted the younger girl's head before returning to her back once again.
Griselda didn't seem to mind this, and she was thinking of how she was going to lose this little unwanted entourage of hers when the words of the aide caught her attention.
"…the person responsible for all these incidents is a titled noble. His name is Evan Eris and he holds the peerage of Count."
"?!"
Hearing that name, Griselda abruptly stopped in her tracks, and naturally, this meant the people walking behind her bumped into her back but she didn't even flinch.
She turned around with widened eyes, a hint of recognition flashing through them as she muttered the name that had just been spoken.
"Evan…Eris…"
Though her voice was low, the hallway was silent at that moment so everyone present heard her loud and clear.
The older silver lady whom she had addressed as 'Matriarch' stopped and turned, faster than Griselda could control her expressions and noticed the 'recognition' in the teenage girl's eyes.
At this point, Griselda didn't even bother trying to hide anything as she pushed aside the other teenagers in front of her and walked up to the Matriarch's Aide.
"You were making a report about an 'Evan Eris', just now, were you not?
I doubt that's classified information for the Matriarch's ears only, as you wouldn't speak about it in such a place if it was.
Would you mind relaying it to me as well?"
Griselda's words were met with looks of surprise, but the girl ignored them all and focused her gaze on the Aide who was the most dumbfounded of them all.
Before he could speak, however, the Matriarch's voice rang out first.
"Griselda."
"Yes?"
"Why do you wish to know about this human noble?"
The contents of the question she posed made question marks pop up over the heads of the six other teenagers and they couldn't help but voice their confusion.
"Lady Griselda…wants to know more about a human?"
"Why would she want to know about something so lowly?"
One out of the six, however, had his crimson eyes shine as he saw this as an opportunity. Stepping forward, he posed a question of his own to Griselda.
"Lady Griselda. Pardon me, this human wouldn't happen to be someone you have a 'secret relationship' with, would he?"
Only after he spoke, did Griselda finally turn her gaze towards the boy, giving this annoying cousin of hers a deadpan look.
"What? You can't blame me for getting any ideas, given how you reacted to just hearing a name. Even more so when contrasted with your normal attitude."
"When he puts it like that…"
"…it kinda seems plausible…"
Griselda cursed the her of a few minutes ago who didn't just ignore this lot and walk away, but before she could say anything to address their far-fetched 'concerns', her cousins spoke once more.
"How about we have a little spar like always? Last time you said I was distracted and slacked in my training…this time, we need to make sure the thoughts of this human haven't distracted you and made you slack on your training?"
The teenager had an impish smile on his face as he spoke, and each word pushed Griselda closer to the maximum limit of 'bullshit' she could tolerate in one day.
Normally, she usually avoided putting herself in situations where she could go over said limit, but this lot had been bugging her all morning, plus, she wanted to know what the news about Evan was and this cousin of hers chose now of all times to disturb her conversation with her mother.
She took a deep breath in, held it for a few seconds and then she breathed out.
**BOOOMM!!!!
Besides the two adults present, no one else saw what just happened.
One moment Griselda's cousin was standing in front of them, and the next, the tinted windows beside them had a human-
sized hole and there were screams of pain coming from the courtyard.
Most importantly, Griselda's fist was stretched out and one could see a bit of blood dripping off it and to the ground.
"Ah…I let the Intrusive thought win."
That was all Griselda said after punching her cousin out the window and into the courtyard, where the light of the sun and all its radiation bore down on him and made him feel the same way a human who just had a bucket of boiling water poured on them would.
"Oh well…"
She certainly felt a lot better after hitting him in the face, so she shrugged her shoulders as the blood on her hands slowly floated up from her body before falling back to the ground.
It should be noted that this cousin of hers was a Level 299 Superior Master Realm Existence, on the cusp of achieving grandmaster, and yet Griselda had hit him faster than he could react, and with enough strength to send him flying over a hundred metres of distance.
And then, as if she hadn't just casually made someone's B+ durability stat look like paper, she turned back to her mother—
the Lorelei Vampire Clan's Matriarch; Riah—and continued speaking.
"So, about that human noble…"
Riah looked at the scene that her daughter had just created, before gazing at the other teenage vampires who had shrunk away from her in fear before shaking her head.
She waved her hand and created a veil of darkness to stop the sunlight from reaching into the hallway as the other teenage vampires were merely just normal Noble Vampires, they couldn't resist the sun as well as she and Griselda could.
"He'll tell you what you want to know if you inform me exactly what this name means to you?"
Griselda went silent, her lips twisting into a frown as she stared at her mother. Her thoughts, however, were the polar opposite of her expression.
'That's all she wants to know? Just that? No problem then!
She already knows I went to the Alpha Continent—she did put a sixth tracker in that artifact she gave me.'
Leaving aside how Griselda discovered the first five trackers in the Spatial Gate artifact, the girl considered the slim chance of her mother deeming Evan as a 'potential threat' and trying to kill him but she quickly crossed out that possibility.
'She can't go to the Alpha Continent…
If what Evan said was correct, then the instant she does, she'd be attacked by a Transcendent.
I don't know how strong the other Transcendents are but using the Dragon Lord as a reference, Mother can't win.
Long story short…there's no problem telling her about Evan.'
"Fine."
"Good, come with me then."
Riah then looked up at the ceiling after speaking to Griselda and continued.
"Clean up this mess."
Three shadows dropped to the ground and bowed in silence before one of them phased through the veil of darkness and went out to pick up Griselda's cousin.
Meanwhile, the girl was following her mother while thinking that she should really have her dress adjusted when Riah's voice broke her out of her thoughts.
"You went overboard."
"I know.
Unfortunately, I reached the limit of my tolerance for his bullshit."
"Your actions would only give him more reasons to nit-pick at you."
Griselda chuckled when she heard her mother's words, an eerie smile coming up to her face as she spoke.
"If it wasn't for the law that forbids internal fights leading to deaths…I'm not so sure he'd be alive to nit-pick at me."
Seeing her daughter casually speak about murdering her cousin, Riah sighed while wondering where on Aidos the girl inherited this behaviour from.
'It's her father, right? It's him! It can only be him!'
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