Chapter 124 - Second Wing
Lanwan Viscountcy, the Viscount's Castle.
In the morning, Renee, having just woken up, sat at her vanity in her nightgown, barefoot. Charlotte, wearing only a nightdress herself, stood behind her little maid, combing her hair.
Renee watched her lady's clumsy movements in the mirror and said with a helpless smile, "My lady, breakfast time is almost over."
Most women from well-off families in the Oran Empire placed great importance on their hairstyles. In this country, a woman's hair was often seen as a symbol of her beauty and chastity. A noble girl like Charlotte, who liked to wander around with her hair down, would usually be considered dissolute, frivolous, and improper.
Fortunately, Charlotte had Renee as her personal maid. Renee only allowed her lady to let her hair down at home. Whenever she had to go out and meet people, Renee would always style Charlotte's hair properly.
Even a maid from a noble family like Renee had to style her own hair beautifully every day for the sake of her master's dignity.
Renee would sometimes braid parts of her long hair into several thin pigtails and then wrap some of them around her head like a ribbon, creating a look that was both lively and cute, yet neat and capable.
Charlotte had watched Renee style her hair like this many times and thought that with her own intelligence, she should have learned how to do it by now. So today, on a whim, she offered to comb Renee's hair.
Renee initially refused, but Charlotte wouldn't let go of the comb. When Renee tried to take it, Charlotte puffed out her cheeks, pouted her lips, and looked at Renee with a pitiful expression, as if she were on the verge of tears.
Although she knew Charlotte was just feigning pity, Renee couldn't resist her lady's act. She obediently sat down at the vanity and let Charlotte work on her hair.
And the result?
Utterly predictable.
Renee had woken up at the crack of dawn, and now the sun was high in the sky, yet Charlotte's creation still had no discernible shape.
Charlotte carefully released her hands, and the braids she had just coiled up unraveled once again. She stomped her foot in frustration, a wave of irritation washing over her. "What's going on? Why won't it work?"
"Why don't you let me do it?" Renee suggested, seeing Charlotte's exasperated state.
"No, I'll try again!" Charlotte said stubbornly.
Charlotte gathered the flaxen hair once more, revealing Renee's fair and delicate neck. Charlotte felt a warmth in her stomach and couldn't help but swallow.
"My lady." Renee keenly noticed that something was off with Charlotte's state.
Charlotte hugged Renee from behind, resting her chin on Renee's neck and sniffing lightly. "I want to take a bite," she said.
Renee laughed and gestured toward the bed with her chin. "There's a ready-made one over there. Go bite her."
On the bed, the little maid Linda was still fast asleep. Linda was delicate and frail, and she hadn't awakened any extraordinary powers. A little roughhousing in bed had been too much for her to handle Charlotte's antics. Based on past experience, Linda would have to sleep until tonight to recover. During that time, no matter what was done to her, the little maid would likely have no strength to resist.
"No," Charlotte insisted. For some reason, a scent from Renee seemed to be whetting her appetite. She nuzzled against Renee, rubbing the soft peaks of her chest against Renee's back, and pleaded, "Just let me have one bite..."
Renee's gaze fell behind Charlotte, where two wings of light had appeared. One of them was faint and indistinct, as if it were still coalescing.
Renee more or less understood the situation. She nodded and said, "Then go ahead and bite."
Charlotte bit down on Renee's neck, and the taste of blood quickly spread through her mouth. She sucked forcefully. The blood of her own kind tasted unprecedentedly rich and sweet on her tongue, but it did nothing to alleviate the burning hunger in her stomach.
An impulse rose within Charlotte—an urge to tear off a piece of Renee's flesh and chew it. However, the sliver of reason on the verge of being completely overwhelmed by appetite told her that it was wrong to let herself be consumed by animalistic instincts. So, she did her best to control her movements to avoid causing too severe an injury to Renee.
In the mirror, Renee saw the look in Charlotte's eyes, almost identical to that of a starving carnivore, but she did not waver. She sat there quietly, allowing Charlotte to bite and suck on her vulnerable neck.
About half a day passed. As the second wing gradually solidified, Charlotte's reason slowly returned.
"I'm sorry, Renee..."
Charlotte rubbed against her maid's ear apologetically.
Although Charlotte had tried her best to control herself, she had still caused Renee considerable pain. Precisely because the bites weren't fatal, the bleeding would often stop midway through her feeding, and Charlotte would be unable to resist biting down again. This process repeated an unknown number of times, yet Renee never once complained.
"I'm fine. The wounds will heal quickly."
Renee lay with the exhausted Charlotte on the golden carpet—a gift from Laina, said to be woven from the fur of virgin fox-girls like Coco.
Charlotte knew Renee wasn't lying. For a Three-Winged Swordswoman, this level of healing was basic.
"But you, my lady, what exactly is your Second Wing ability?" Renee asked curiously.
At this, Charlotte's expression darkened a little. "Lilith translated this ability as 'Predation,' but I think it should be translated as 'Cannibalism.'"
"My lady wants to eat people?" Renee asked.
"Mhm," Charlotte nodded and admitted frankly, "Just now, I really wanted to eat your flesh, Renee."
"But that can't be considered an extraordinary ability, can it? I think it might just be the condition to trigger the ability," Renee said, puzzled. "Have you not discovered anything else, my lady?"
Some extraordinary factions required certain conditions to be met to activate powerful abilities. For instance, Celine's Kanoba Faction required sufficient courage and fighting spirit to gain all-around enhancements. Renee felt that Charlotte's Second Wing ability might be similar; satisfying the cost of "cannibalism" was necessary to trigger the ability itself.
"No, I just feel incredibly tired," Charlotte said, shaking her head. She frowned in thought for a moment. "According to the records on the Luyang Obelisk that Lilith translated, the 'Predation' ability should be able to absorb the life force from food to strengthen myself. But such an incomplete record is too vague. It doesn't clarify what 'life force' is or what 'strengthen' means, and I don't feel anything other than tired."
Renee thought for a moment and proposed a possibility. "My lady, perhaps the reason you don't feel any stronger is because you didn't actually eat me."
Renee said this very seriously, but Charlotte suddenly revealed a sly smile. "Perhaps just drinking blood isn't enough. I could eat something else."
"Hm?" Renee looked puzzled.
Charlotte leaned close to Renee's ear and whispered a few words.
Renee's cheeks flushed slightly, and she flicked her lady on the forehead in annoyance. "If my lady wants to eat, go find Linda. I don't have time for your nonsense."
With that, Renee pushed Charlotte away, stood up, and went to change her clothes.
Although Charlotte didn't emerge from her bedroom until almost noon, most of the maids in the castle were used to it. After all, their lady had a history of not leaving her bedroom for days on end.
The chef brought from the Green Plains Duchy had prepared a lavish lunch for Charlotte. As she tasted the delicious food she usually loved, her brows furrowed involuntarily. She found that although she could eat normally, no matter how much chicken, duck, fish, or meat she ate, there was always a faint, lingering hunger in her stomach, as if she had to eat certain specific foods to eliminate it.
Was she truly destined to walk the path of eating human flesh?
Although Charlotte had been mentally prepared for all sorts of risks when she chose this ancient extraordinary faction that no one in the current era practiced, the fewer negative effects, the better. And needing to eat people was a decidedly major negative effect.
Moreover, her intuition told her that "eating people" might not be the correct answer.
This ancient extraordinary faction was inscribed on an obelisk in the ruins of Luyang city. The obelisk stood in a rather prominent complex within the ruins, which Lilith speculated was an ancient "education park" or something similar.
How could an extraordinary faction that required cannibalism be blatantly carved in a relatively bustling part of a city?
Wouldn't that encourage people to eat each other?
Surely the ancients from a hundred thousand years ago couldn't have been that unrestrained?
Therefore, Charlotte felt there must be another solution to her current condition; she just hadn't figured it out yet.
Unfortunately, Lilith was not around.
Charlotte suddenly missed Lilith. If she were here, she would surely be able to offer some valuable advice.
Unfortunately, that 1.3-meter-tall girl had been exploring the Soqya Peninsula for four or five months now, and there had been no news from her, which made Charlotte both miss and worry about her.
Just as Charlotte was contemplating her situation over lunch, Cecilia walked into the dining room with a stack of documents.
"Cecilia, working while you eat is bad for your health," Charlotte complained.
Cecilia rolled her eyes. "If I hadn't wanted to avoid disturbing your fun, I would have come to your bedroom to find you this morning."
With that, Cecilia unceremoniously sat down opposite Charlotte and began her work report, which mainly consisted of two items.
"The first matter is that Jonathan Hackman has sent back the reparation agreements he signed with Carmela and Badan..." Cecilia pushed two thick documents in front of Charlotte.
Charlotte casually flipped through a few pages and then asked, "So only Dolrcocha hasn't agreed to pay us war reparations?"
"It seems so for now," Cecilia nodded. "Mr. Hackman will be heading to the city-states of Sudaman and Kaoluo next. They shouldn't refuse to compensate our... losses."
Having spent so much time with Charlotte, Cecilia felt her own moral baseline steadily dropping. In the past, she would never have been able to so brazenly speak of making small city-states like Sudaman and Kaoluo, who hadn't even sent a single soldier, pay for losses.
Now, not only did Cecilia say it, but she felt she said it with righteous conviction.
Charlotte pondered for a moment. "Then the only problem left to solve is Dolrcocha."
"How do you plan to solve the problem of Dolrcocha?" Cecilia asked.
"I already had Jonathan announce in Dolrcocha that we would send troops, so naturally, we will send troops again," Charlotte said.
"Another war?" Cecilia felt a pang of heartache at the thought of the high cost of Charlotte's wars.
"No," Charlotte shook her head. "Sending troops doesn't necessarily mean fighting a war."
Cecilia blinked, somewhat confused, but as Charlotte didn't seem inclined to explain further, she continued, "The second matter is that Little Sassinian has released all the Ambratu citizen-soldier prisoners, about two thousand of them, including four hundred Awakened..."
Soqya Peninsula, Ambratu County.
The solid stone-paved road, the old city walls—everything before him felt so familiar to Avery, a former citizen-soldier of Ambratu.
At the end of last year, persuaded by John Rice, Avery had followed Antanas on the expedition against Little Sassinian. That expedition became the beginning of all his nightmares.
Countless comrades had died, either on the battlefield, during hard labor, or under torture by the people of Little Sassinian...
In the end, Avery even heard that his home, the city-state of Ambratu, no longer existed, having become the Ambratu County under the rule of the Viscount of Lanwan.
However, whether it was the city-state of Ambratu or Ambratu County, Avery didn't much care. The only thought in his mind was to go home.
Following the familiar path, Avery's steps were light, and he broke into a jog until he reached his front door.
The door was ajar, not locked. Avery eagerly pushed it open and called out loudly, "Edwina, I'm back! Edwina!"
A moment later, a young woman in an apron ran out from inside. She stared at Avery, who had just entered, frozen on the spot, her face a mask of disbelief. This young woman was Avery's wife, Edwina.
"Edwina, my dear wife, I'm back," Avery said with a smile, opening his arms to her.
However, Edwina did not rush into his arms and cry as Avery had imagined. She remained frozen in place.
At first, Avery thought his wife was just too overcome with emotion to react.
However, a moment later, a tall and sturdy man came out of the house, stood beside Edwina, and glared at Avery.
Avery frowned. "Who are you? Why are you in my house?"
"Your house?" The tall, sturdy man shoved Avery and roared, "This is my house! Edwina is my wife! Now get out!"