The Amber Sword

“How long are you going to pretend to be asleep, dear sister?”

The young man stood at the edge of his cousin’s bed, tilting his head. He had stared at her for quite some time before commenting. His soft voice was sweet as honey, but the sarcasm in his tone was chilling.

Dilferi coughed softly and a sickly blush bloomed beneath her white cheeks. Her lush lashes fluttered open, revealing a pair of bright, clear eyes staring at her cousin. Her eyes revealed her feeble state, but a burning hatred resided in the depth of her eyes.

“What do you want, Akel.”

“You heard what I said earlier. You know what I want, don’t you?” The young man leaned down and peered into his cousin’s eyes, “If you hand over the Ring of the Broken Sword from Yanbao, I’ll let you off the hook today.”

“And if I say no?” Dilferi averted her eyes fearfully.

The young man smirked and grabbed her by the chin, wrenching her face back. He leered at the face in front of him, a face that belonged to his cousin, “Do you think I wouldn’t touch you, dear sister?”

“You’re crazy!” Dilferi detected the fervent possessiveness in her cousin’s eyes. She didn’t know whether to tremble in fear or in anger. All the blood seemed to drain out of the young girl’s pale face. Her face had almost become transparent, like a beautiful piece of jade.

“You’re truly a masterpiece. It’s a miracle that old, blind uncle of mine was able to give birth to a daughter like you.”

The young man smiled sardonically, moving one hand to press against her chest. “On the count of three, tell me where the Ring of the Broken Sword of Yanbao is. Otherwise, don’t blame me for being rude.”

“One.”

“Two.”

The Countess trembled slightly, but she stubbornly closed her eyes. She knew very well that her cousin was by no means the kind of gentleman who kept his word, and if she opened her mouth here, a miserable end would be waiting for her.

“Don’t you dare touch me, Akel, or you’ll never touch that ring for the rest of your life.” Dilferi replied icily, forcing herself to calm down. Yanbao’s Ring of the Broken Sword was a token of the Count of Yanbao that had been passed down from generation to generation since the Seifer Dynasty. This ring was to the House Yanbao as the Sacred Lionheart Sword was to Aouine and the Flaming Blade Oderfeiss was to the Kirrultz Empire. Without this ring, the Count of Yanbao cannot be legitimized.

“Wrong answer. Three.” The young man smirked, “My dear sister, you’ve got one thing wrong. Do you really think this ring is so important to me? Sooner or later, the position of the Count of Yanbao will be mine. It doesn’t matter whether I have these superficial tokens or not. In comparison, I’m more interested in you!”

With that, he popped open the first brass button on Dilferi’s shirt.

“Ah-!” Dilferi felt a breeze on her chest; A patch of her snow-white skin was exposed. She couldn’t help but scream, “Akel, you’re mad!”

Fear finally settled into the Countess and she started struggling violently. Her reaction only incited a maniacal response from the young man. “Yes, I’m mad. However, my dear sister, you have brought this upon yourself!”

He pressed the limp and weak Dilferi onto the bed. “I’ll give you one last chance, Dilferi, the ring of Yanbao,” Akel growled.

“I won’t give it to you even if I die, Akel.” The Countess wept weakly.

“Then you shall die.”

But just when he finished that sentence, an icy voice replied, “Yes, I too think a certain beast should just die.”

“Who is it!”

The sudden sound made Akel turn back in trepidation, but all he saw was the door being shredded like a piece of paper and the black longsword that stabbed through it being retracted. In the next second, the longsword had already arrived in front of his nose.

“No!” The handsome boy let out a wretched scream, “Anurek, where the heck are you!”

........

Niya immediately recovered after a brief period of unconsciousness. She felt like she was slowly waking up from a long dream. All she could remember was a vague nightmare of the devil she didn’t want to see.

Her head seemed to clear up, and she could hear a conversation near her.

“Brandel, after we deal with this stuff in the Ampere Seale, I’m going with you to Trentheim.”

“Your Highness...”

“What’s the matter, am I not welcome?”

“No, I’m just a little confused. Why would Your Highness want to go to that remote village in the middle of nowhere all of a sudden? To be honest, I’d rather stay in Ampere Seale if I could.”

“Because I have a best friend there who got kidnapped by a certain lord. She’s my best friend and was injured because of me. I must go see her.”

The man coughed awkwardly.

The two voices came from afar and the female knight was shocked to find that it was Her Highness and the Count. So the Count had already awoken? She subconsciously tried to get up and go greet them – she was a little confused as to why she had suddenly fallen asleep.

However, as she tried to shift her position, she realized that her hands were tied behind her back. In fact, her whole body was tied to a post. Niya suddenly remembered the events that happened earlier.

“Miss Dilferi!” The female knight couldn’t help but let out a low cry. She opened her eyes abruptly and saw Brendel and the Princess opening the door to the front hall.

She immediately noticed the maid beside them.

Brendel, on the other hand, immediately noticed the female knight tied to the post, who he remembered as the big-boobed girl. He even fought her before when he first met Dilferi. He recalled that her name was Niya and was Dilferi’s personal knight.

“What’s this about?” His expression instantly changed.

“What the hell is going on here?” Her Highness also turned back to question the maid.

They had seen the maid standing outside with a pale face before they even entered the courtyard, but when they asked her what happened, she could only stutter and stare. They rushed over when they realized something was wrong and opened the door without even knocking. He didn’t expect to see such a scene opening the door.

Brendel rushed to Niya’s side, untied the female knight, and then removed the ball of cloth in her mouth. Once Niya felt that her mouth was empty, she immediately shouted: “Mr. Brendel, save Miss Dilferi” before she could even catch her breath.

“Where is she? What’s happened?” Brendel’s expression changed.

After leaving the ‘Recettear’ weapons and defense shop, he and the princess decided to visit the countess on a whim. Her Highness had mentioned that Dilferi wasn’t fairing very well, because she had forced herself to use the Demon Armlet which greatly drained her life. Although she was able to survive in the end, she would probably have to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

Brendel wanted to come and comfort the Countess. He expected this outcome, after all, the Devil King wasn’t something that just anyone could control. At that time, everyone thought they were going to die, so they rashly let Dilferi use this method. However, he didn’t expect the one who left with the most severe trauma to be the young woman from Yanbao.

However, her injuries weren’t irreparable in Brendel’s opinion. The legendary Fountain of Life in the Black Forest would be the perfect solution to this problem. The Fountain of Life may just be an ethereal legend to the average person, but it wasn’t so to him. Brendel felt that if he waited for a few days, entering the Black Forest to search for the Fountain of Life was not out of the question.

Of course, he felt the need to settle Dilferi down before that.

However, he didn’t expect to encounter a problem as soon as he arrived.

In fact, before Niya had even opened her mouth, Brendel had more or less guessed who the enemy was. There were only three forces that could come and trouble this countess. For one, devils, though he doubted they would come again so soon. Besides, even if the King of Chaos wanted revenge, he would look for Brendel first, not this countess.

The other one would be the Holy Cathedral of Fire. However, because the use of demonic spells could be a serious issue, the Holy Cathedral of Fire wouldn’t slap itself in the face at this point in time. Besides, they wouldn’t use such a shameless method of kidnapping a noble. If word of this ever got out, the Holy Cathedral of Fire might as well close down.

Then all that would be left would be the people within the Yanbao family struggling for power. In fact, back when he first encountered Dilferi by sneaking into the manor, Brendel realized that something probably happened in Yanbao, otherwise they wouldn’t have let a girl like Dilferi come to such a place representing the Count of Yanbao. They even brought along some of the strongest warriors within Yanbao.

However, he hadn’t expected that those ungrateful nobles had come to cause him trouble right after the Ampere Seale War. Furthermore, they even dealt a direct attack on Dilferi.

The anger in Brendel’s heart flared.

“The lady is in her room on the second floor, and someone is trying to harm her-!”

“Which one is her room?” Before the female knight could finish her words, Brendel interrupted her. The young lord’s icy tone startled Niya slightly as she did not understand why he was so angry.

In her opinion, Brendel was one of the culprits that caused Dilferi to be in the state she is now. She hadn’t thought very highly of Brendel. However, this time, she replied meekly, “On the second floor, third room down on the left. Please, Count, help the lady...”

Before the female knight could finish her words, Brendel’s Halran Gaia had already come out of its sheath. Its dark, heavy blade reflected the slight chill in her heart. She fully felt the killing intent emanating from the young lord, and in the next moment, Brendel disappeared before her.

The Kirrultz people’s Flash Strike Sword Art.

Brendel used that very same Flash Strike Sword Art. He swung a backhanded swing at a pillar on the overhanging cloister of the second floor, severing it with his sword and then passing through it, and landed steadily on the cloister.

The door to Dilferi’s room was already in front of him.

It was at this time that Brendel’s keen sense of hearing allowed him to hear the last exchange between Akel and Dilferi. He would’ve been better off not hearing it, as this almost made him go mad.

Is he even human?

He knew about the unpleasant rumors among some of the nobles in Aouine, but it disgusted him seeing that an older brother would do this to his own sister. It was absolutely unacceptable in Brendel’s mind, contradicting both in his modern beliefs and his world view as a simple young man from Bucce.

His heart turned cold; The only other time he had felt such rage was when he witnessed what Graudin had done at Coldwood Castle. The Space Elemental Power solidified along with the fury of its master, and before Brendel even struck out with his sword, a white frost centered exploded outwards from him with ‘boom.’

Brendel thrust his sword forward.

The door splintered, and he saw a startled and bewildered face. Though the young man was physically handsome, his actions made him uglier than a devil.