“Aack!”

Chiiik. As the mouth of the gold coin pouch loosened, a golden light glimmered. Egritte’s skin that touched the gold coins turned red as if burned.

“My skin! My skin!”

‘Fortunately, I brought a few of Duke Inkhart’s gold coins as a souvenir.’

The magical gold coins, which could never be caught by those who were greedy, even inflicted burns on evil people.

“Keck, keck! Sylph!”

“Damn wench, I’ll never let you die peacefully!”

Egritte growled at the ugly wound on her body. However, she seemed to sense the presence of the Sylph I had called, as she flinched and took a step back.

“A spirit user?”

Magic power and spirit power did not have good compatibility.

‘I called it, but I don’t know what command to give!’

“Hmph, it’s just a gust of wind after all.”

Seeing that I couldn’t move rashly, Egritte snorted again and entered an attack stance. I shouted desperately.

“Sylph, make that woman retreat!”

It worked!

Egritte’s magic power, which she was gathering at her fingertips while holding her staff, was disrupted by the Sylph’s body slam.

“Eits! That’s just annoying at best! Such petty tricks!”

I quickly used the Sylph to disrupt her magic power again, but as the attacks were repeated, Egritte seemed to get used to it and dodged.

“I’ll kill you myself and feed your blood to my demon!”

Oh no!

While I was focusing only on Egritte, her demon had circled behind and was pouncing on me. The Sylph was still dealing with Egritte.

‘At this rate, I’ll die!’

Just as I tightly closed my eyes at the demon opening its mouth wide.

“Anette!”

Darius appeared in view as the door was smashed.

‘Darius!’

There was no time to shout.

“Get out of the way!”

Darius threw his axe towards me without hesitation.

Whoop whoop, the large axe flew menacingly and struck right into the demon’s body.

“What axe is that?!”

“Is that important right now?”

Darius shouted incredulously as he tried to clear away the fragments of the broken door. The half-broken door was still inconvenient for Darius to pass through.

“Tch, so the lord has come…”

Lady Egritte, who had been gaining the upper hand, clicked her tongue softly. Indeed, even Egritte, who controlled demons, seemed to find Darius a formidable opponent.

Surprisingly, Lady Egritte showed remarkable acting skills the next moment.

“Your Grace, it’s fortunate you came. Oh my, a terrifying demon appeared and gave the lady and me such a fright!”

Lady Egritte staggered towards Darius as if she had really been startled by a suddenly appearing demon.

The mirror in my pocket rattled. The hand mirror consisting of two pieces, salvaged from Duke Inkhart’s treasure room, was a mirror that could immediately see the face on the other side with one mirror.

Who would have thought the mirror I was planning to use to reveal her embezzlement while talking to Lady Egritte would be used like this?

“Step back, Anette.”

Darius, who had clearly seen through the mirror that Lady Egritte had suddenly attacked me, exuded a fierce aura towards her.

“Th-That’s not it! Don’t rebuke me for believing only Madam Anette’s strange words! The strange one is Madam Anette! Yes, Madam Anette is truly suspicious!”

“Nonsense!”

To prevent any further nonsense and to attack Lady Egritte, I threw Duke Inkhart’s gold coin at her.

Immediately, the gold coin dug into Lady Egritte’s flesh, inflicting an injury.

“Aaaagh!”

“No one has ever been burned like you when touching the gold coins!”

“My arm! M-My arm!”

Lady Egritte rolled her eyes at the ugly red mark.

“Who are you? Are you the real Lady Egritte? Or are you a being that devoured Lady Egritte? If you devoured her, since when?”

The kind relative and housekeeper of Inkhart Castle I thought I knew well.

When everything didn’t go as planned, Lady Egritte finally threw off her detestable mask.

“Originally, I was planning to just kill the wench and disappear, but now I have no choice!”

Lady Egritte began to attack actively in cooperation with her demon.

“You ask when I became a witch? What nonsense are you talking about? I was myself from the beginning. Do you think I would have been in this wretched North if it wasn’t easy to devour people?”

‘She infiltrated the North with the intention of harming people from the start?’

I gaped in shock at the setting that wasn’t revealed in the original work.

Darius wasn’t as agitated as I was. He calmly drew his sword.

“I’ll have a lot to ask after I take you down.”

“Ha, how brave of a youngling who couldn’t even notice my true identity until now!”

Pufeng. Egritte’s magic power gathered in her hand and then shot towards Darius.

Darius swung his sword to split the magic power.

Chiiik!

‘A magic sword!’

As the mana of the sword collided with Egritte’s magic power, the two forces canceled each other out, leaving only the crackling sound of electricity.

“Eek! My demon that ate my sacrifice!”

Egritte, who failed with one strike, immediately summoned the injured demon in front of her.

Egritte raised her nails and tore into her burned arm.

“Eat my flesh and blood, and lend me your power once more!”

Thud thud thud.

As Egritte’s blood was splashed over the demon, it recovered its wounds.

“Grwooooo!”

“Compared to the demons that come from the borderlands of the North, this is nothing.”

Chang. Cha-chang.

With a clear metallic clash, Darius sliced the demon horizontally and vertically.

The slime-like demon didn’t die even when cut into pieces. The scattered body parts stuck together again and wriggled. However, its movements were becoming significantly slower.

“My demon that ate my blood!”

Egritte screamed as she raised her staff.

‘No!’

It was when Egritte extended her staff towards Darius’s back.

“Sylph, Wind Cutter!”

Before I knew it, the command to the spirit fell from my lips.

“Anette!”

Swoosh. A cool wind swept through the room once. It was a fresh breeze that purified the smell of blood.

And it was also powerful.

“Aaaagh!”

Egritte, hit by the wind, suffered a deep injury and was slammed into the wall.

“Grwooooo…”

As its summoner lost power, the demon disappeared to the other side of the demon realm with a weak cry, unable to maintain its existence.

‘I gave a command to a spirit for the first time.’

Not an abstract command like ‘attack that woman on your own,’ but a proper attack command!

‘I just shouted any magic often used in romance fantasy novels, and I’m glad it worked…’

“Urgh.”

Gulp. Lady Egritte sat down and spat black blood due to the backlash of the reverse summoning.

Even in that state, Lady Egritte didn’t give up and tried to draw a magic circle again with the blood she spat out.

‘No!’

“Anette!”

As I tried to control the Sylph to subdue Lady Egritte, unexpectedly, Darius blocked me first. My wide eyes met Darius’s black ones.

“It’s dangerous.”

“We need to stop that woman!”

“Please leave such things to me and stay somewhere even slightly safer!”

What are you saying? Whoever discovers it should stop it. As I struggled to free myself from Darius’s embrace, frustrated with him for stopping me, it happened.

“Your Grace, My Lady!”

Belatedly arriving at the commotion, the knights were shocked to see the collapsed room.

Even the large magic circle that Lady Egritte had confidently claimed as her domain was now half erased.

“Oh, brave knights! I’m so glad you’ve come.”

Seeing the knights, Lady Egritte racked her brain once again.

“Don’t support that woman!”

Startled by my sharp warning, unlike usual, the knights looked at Darius, their lord. Darius nodded with a stern face.

“Lady Egritte pointed a sword at me.”

To be precise, it was the demon’s teeth that were pointed.

“Pardon? Lady Egritte did?”

The knights alternately looked at Lady Egritte’s frail figure and Darius, who was still holding his sword, throwing doubtful glances.

“No, it’s all a misunderstanding, everyone!”

“The cute word ‘misunderstanding’ doesn’t seem to suit the crimes you’ve committed.”

I shouted.

“This woman betrayed the Duke’s trust and used her position as the castle’s housekeeper to embezzle money behind his back. When I revealed this today, she tried to kill me to silence me.”

As I added more explanation, the knights’ faces hardened.

“No, I…”

That’s right, it’s not just that. In fact, besides embezzlement, she committed treason against the lord and even murder.

“Let’s go, Lady Egritte. We’ll hear the detailed explanation in prison.”

Among the gathered knights was Daniel. Upon hearing that I had been threatened by Lady Egritte, Daniel hid his usual kind face and began to escort Lady Egritte with a stern attitude.

“I was so close! I was about to leave this wretched North! Aagh, Anette!”

Lady Egritte, who had lost her magic and her wealthy life, gnashed her teeth at me.

“Indeed. Fortunately, we caught you before that ‘so close’ passed and before you left the North.”

I muttered and was about to turn to Darius with a bright smile, intending to say how fortunate it was that things were resolved well.

“My Lady, do you have two or three lives?!”

That is, until Darius clearly got angry with me.

“No, even with two or three lives, this shouldn’t happen. With Rose, and now this! Why do you always jump into such dangerous situations?”

‘Why is he angry? Both finding the treasure with Rose alive and catching the embezzler Lady Egritte were all done for the good of the North, weren’t they?’

“It’s not dangerous. Thanks to Your Grace coming at the right time, I’m alive like this. And things turned out well.”

“If I hadn’t made it in time, you would have…!”

He seemed to choke up at my response and thumped his chest.