Chapter 126
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“What? Why all of a sudden?”
“I don’t know the cause myself. I only received a report that he suddenly collapsed while walking in the garden with the Count’s daughter.”
Even as he hurried out of the carriage, Ivan didn’t forget to hold out his hand to Ruby.
“Has the attending physician been called?”
“Yes, he’s already examined him, but he says the cause is unknown.”
“Oh no…”
Taking his hand and setting foot on the ducal grounds, Ruby only then sensed something off.
“Hah.”
Insolently, the grounds around the ducal house were full of foul-smelling spirits. Still, thankfully, because of the barrier she’d set, they hadn’t managed to invade the interior of the manor itself.
Ruby hastily pulled her hand from Ivan’s grip and strode off.
“Ruby?”
“M-Miss?”
Despite Ivan’s and Liam’s calls, Ruby didn’t look back. Instead, she ran swiftly into the manor. In one go, she rushed up to the duke’s room and pulled the ash branch from her luggage.
For the foul-smelling things, being struck with this branch would hurt more than being beaten with a staff. The thought that they’d dared to invade House Negro, which bore her own mark, made her blood boil.
They’d worked another’s spirit power in a place where a spirit wielder resided?
“This is a declaration of war.”
Going down the stairs as fast as she’d come up, Ruby dashed straight out to the back garden.
“Ruby!”
Ivan and Liam hurried after Ruby as she vanished into the distance in an instant.
The moment Ruby came out into the back garden, she scrunched her face at the damp, foul smell.
She saw the spirits that usually feared her now huddled in a corner, trembling, unable to even recognize her presence.
Ruby turned her gaze to where the spirits were looking. Hidden by the flowers, garden trees, and various plants filling the garden, she couldn’t see clearly, but she could tell that countless creatures were spread across the ground.
“serpents.”
What slithered soundlessly across the ground were countless serpents.
“What? serpents?”
Liam, who had come out after her, was horrified at her words and looked around, but to his eyes, it was only a quiet garden bathed in soft moonlight.
“What are you talking about, Ruby? Where are there serpents?”
At Ivan’s question, Ruby answered with her eyes fixed on the ground.
“To be precise, souls draped in serpentskin, I suppose?”
The revolting number of serpent souls made her gag. But Ruby didn’t back away. She moved toward where the serpents were massed together, their bodies tangled.
“Guardian Spirit, I’ll borrow the branch.”
The Ash Tree Guardian Spirit, who had already appeared at her side before she even spoke, answered kindly.
‘I’ll have to lengthen it so it’s easier for you to use.’
No sooner had the Guardian Spirit finished speaking than the branch, which had reached only from her wrist to her elbow, grew long.
Gripping the ash branch, now grown as long as a staff, Ruby began striking down at the serpents on the ground without mercy.
Skreeeek!
A bizarre sound, inaudible to anyone else, filled the garden. Ruby struck down and destroyed the serpent souls one after another as they came into view.
At the same time, her eyes flashing, she began searching for something.
“Ruby…”
Ivan couldn’t sense it precisely, but he detected that the flow of the air was subtly changing.
It was clear that the things visible only to Ruby’s eyes were now disappearing.
He clenched both fists and gritted his teeth. When it came to spirit power, no one here could help Ruby. Ivan was no exception.
“…It seems these are again things visible only to your eyes, Miss.”
Liam felt no differently from Ivan. The head maid, who had come out as far as the path connecting to the manor, also watched what Ruby was doing.
Not only her, but Count Morado, who had heard the news late and turned his carriage back, was also watching what Ruby was doing.
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