Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume11 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 10===

The Vanderbilt lady left the Rose & Lily’s server room, walked down the corridor, and quickly doubled back after turning the first corner.

Men in black clothes and sunglasses were clearly headed her way. They were still walking rather than running, but they were clearly hurrying toward a certain destination. Plus, they either had special armor or mechanical strength enhancements because their suits swelled out from within and their feet sank deeply into the carpet.

She pressed her back against the wall by the corner and took a breath.

The wall and floor were trembling from the sounds of the fireworks and an unpleasant sweat appeared on her brow.

Just as she prepared to turn around and take another path, an elderly male face appeared nearby.

“Hyah!!”

“Pardon me, lady. I did not mean to frighten you.”

He was gentle-mannered, but he wore the same black clothing. White gloves covered his dried twig-like fingers and he held a small handgun with a silencer attacked.

He held it close enough that the muzzle nearly touched her belly and he smiled.

“Please come with me, lady. You will understand why soon enough.”

“Surely you aren’t planning to take me to His Excellency of the Eggnog family. These are not my formal clothes and my family insignia is in my room. I doubt I would be given permission to have an audience with him.”

“Do not be silly. Do you really think we would put His Excellency or his honor in danger, lady? This will all fall under the category of ‘I have no memory of that. My secretary or butler did it all’.”

“…”

As expected of a royal servant, he was well trained.

(Now, will they tie me up and sacrifice me to Azureyfear or will they directly silence me while disguising it as the former?)

She placed a confident smile on her lips, but she was filled with anxiety on the inside.

There truly was nothing more she could do.

However, her pride as a member of the Vanderbilt family did not allow her to let it show.

She took her first unwilling step at the insistence of the silencer-equipped gun.

A moment later, she heard a few muffled gunshots and the old man collapsed to the floor after receiving some powerful blows to the back.

The Vanderbilt lady had no idea what had happened, but the situation did not wait for her to catch up.

“Lady, please get down.”

She heard a dignified female voice.

Someone gently slipped past the young lady as if clearing the way for her, but then she fired another shot into the head and heart of the collapsed old man. The woman held a fully-auto machine pistol. It of course had a silencer equipped. She pulled the slide back, poured a bit of mineral water into the gun through the ejection port to increase its airtightness, and did not hesitate to poke her head out from behind the corridor’s corner.

Flag Eggnog’s pawns had been rushing this way, but they were eliminated almost too easily. Those royal bodyguards had been a little lacking in skill due to their overconfidence in their equipment, but making it look that easy showed just how skilled this woman was.

The muffled sound was much quieter than the fireworks outside, but it squeezed at the young lady’s heart much more. Those blasts were meant to summon death, so they were fundamentally different.

The woman had silver hair and wore a chic maid uniform with a long skirt.

The eyepatch covering one eye and the machine pistol were dangerous looking, but something else caught her attention.

“Oh? That maid uniform… Isn’t that the kind used by the maids that serve a Winchell family manor?”

“My apologies, lady. I still haven’t introduced myself, have I? I am Karen I. Winchell. Not only have I seen you a few times at our residence, but I believe I handed you a glass of nonalcoholic champagne at the party earlier.”

“Oh…um…”

“Do not worry about it. I am merely a maid. While I have been graciously named a member of the Winchell family, it means nothing on the bloodline front. My middle initial stands for ‘imitation’ and the Winchell name is a title awarded me by my master.”

A few more maids wielding guns joined her.

As someone who was constantly being escorted, the Vanderbilt lady could tell this was a bodyguard arrangement.

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She thought for a moment.

“I have a few questions.”

“Ask away.”

“First, I advocate disarmament and strive to resolve the Legitimacy Kingdom’s internal and external problems with words rather than weapons.”

“We are aware this is not your preference, lady. But we will do what is in the interests of our revered and beloved Winchell family as a whole. Losing you here would be a major loss to Winchell.”

“Second, the people you defeated here are connected to the Eggnog family.”

“Lady, there are always loopholes. They carefully created an environment that left no connection back to their master in case they had to dirty their hands. But that also means that their master cannot accuse whoever might strike back at them. After all, they have made sure he and the criminals are entirely unrelated. There is no chance whatsoever of a battle breaking out over revenge. The system prevents it.”

“Three, are you prepared to oppose the overall will of Winchell and assist Vanderbilt, their official enemy?”

“I must admit, that one is harder to answer.”

The eyepatch maid smiled a little, but her lips twisted fiercely as she continued.

“But if you kick the bucket here, that snot-nosed brat will cry. I’m saying I can’t stand to even imagine that look on his face, lady. If it means protecting that smile, I’m more than willing to be branded a traitor.”

That was all she needed to hear.

The Vanderbilt lady and the Winchell maid shook hands.

“Lady, we are your pawns. Please tell us what our next move should be.”

The young lady also dropped her almost coldly elegant speech.

“Take me to my room. If Flag Eggnog is intentionally pitting our families against each other as damage control for his gaffe, he will definitely be monitoring my actions. I need to retrieve the wireless router he’s tampered with and find the evidence linking back to him in either the hardware or software.”

Additional insufficiently trained footsteps approached.

The maids from hell checked the remaining ammunition in their silencer-equipped machine pistols and poured mineral water in through the ejection port to increase the sound suppression.

“What shall we do about any obstacles on the way?”

“You should of course avoid combat as much as possible. I’m a pacifist after all.”

The young lady’s position had not changed.

But…

“And if that doesn’t work, just slaughter them all! Slaughter every last person who stands in the way of my marriage with Master Heivia!!”

Muffled gunshots rang out.

A girl in love had endless possibilities.