Ch.393Rescue Operation

The Empire’s agents and Dane’s warriors. Their battle was fierce and desperate.

Against warriors wielding axes of fire, swords of ice, and spears of lightning, the agents fought a bloody battle relying only on their longswords and numerical advantage.

‘This isn’t easy…’

The commanding agent gritted his teeth as he swung his longsword to deflect incoming ice shards.

The enemies were strong. More than he had anticipated.

Not only did they possess a mage’s firepower, but also a warrior’s skill, making them difficult to deal with to the point of despair.

Their magic activated too quickly to find openings, and even when forcing his way in for a thrust, his blade would be blocked by their weapons.

While engaged in close combat trying to somehow bring them down, he would inevitably be hit by suddenly activated magic.

For some reason, each of them used only one elemental magic, but that alone was enough to handle the agents.

‘To think combining mage and warrior would be this troublesome…’

Magic warriors, one might call them.

At first, seeing them manifest magic through their weapons, he thought they were using enchanted weapons rare even in the Empire, but fighting them revealed that wasn’t quite it.

“Kenaz!”

A middle-aged warrior shouted the rune word while swinging his left arm, sending a wave of flames sweeping across the area.

The agents desperately dodged, but one who couldn’t react in time rolled on the ground, clutching his burned left arm and groaning in agony.

‘As I thought. They can only use one element each, but their manifestation methods are too diverse. This isn’t the power of their weapons, but their own power.’

Originally, magic weapons, while not lacking in power, had fundamental flaws that made them a half-abandoned concept.

Expensive production costs that could make a thousand similar swords and still have money left over, the limitation of only being able to use the single magic engraved on the weapon.

Their pathetic durability that would self-destruct after about a hundred magic activations, plus the inconvenience of needing a mage’s help to recharge mana daily.

Rather than bearing those disadvantages, it was far more cost-effective to recruit or hire a mage as a companion.

However, these enemies were unleashing magic freely as if such disadvantages didn’t concern them at all.

“Is this all you’ve got! You’re far too inadequate to speak of Heaven’s Palace!”

“A warrior dabbling in magic! Have you no shame!”

An agent, electrocuted while parrying a lightning spear, bitterly criticized them, but the Dane warriors paid no attention to his condemnation.

“This is the power bestowed upon us by Him!”

“How so!”

The agents couldn’t understand why the magic warriors were praising Volberg.

If it were Grimnir, god of magic, perhaps, but what connection could Volberg, the warrior god, possibly have with magic?

“What other god bestows blessings upon warriors?”

The warriors grinned and unleashed another barrage of magic.

Flames swirled, ice flew like arrows.

Lightning bolts penetrated armor, and an elderly man transformed into a mass of muscle, his axe cutting through walls like tofu.

Before their fierce onslaught, the agents could barely maintain their defense, unable to advance even slightly.

‘We’re completely blocked…’

The commanding agent shook off his electrocuted, convulsing left arm and glared beyond the corridor.

The distance to the queen’s chamber wasn’t far, but it now seemed impossibly distant. Reaching it was likely impossible.

Nevertheless, a smile formed on his lips, hidden behind his mask.

‘…This is going according to plan. Now, we just need to hold out.’

From the beginning, the agents who infiltrated the annex only needed to keep the four warriors, the biggest obstacles, occupied.

There were others designated to rescue Eleonora.

—-

In one of the inner rooms across the corridor.

Women in maid uniforms and several servants were hiding there, suppressing their presence.

It was an incongruous sight.

When the Empire’s agents entered the annex, most maids had screamed and hidden in their rooms or fled the annex altogether.

But instead of fleeing, these people had gathered in an inner room of the annex amid the chaos.

Instead of showing the fear appropriate for palace maids under attack, their faces were filled with firm resolve.

“As planned, the warriors seem to have left to confront the infiltration team. We can move now.”

These were the infiltration team members that the Empire’s intelligence department had planted in Panam’s annex beforehand.

Agents who had been disguised as maids and servants, collecting information from Panam.

Normally, they too would have been forbidden from entering the annex, but amid the chaos engulfing the entire palace, getting into the annex was all too simple.

“Let’s hurry. We probably don’t have much time.”

Nodding, the infiltration team members carefully left the inner room and moved toward Eleonora’s chamber.

Whenever they sensed people nearby, they acted like maids who had fled in desperate terror.

It didn’t take them long to reach Eleonora’s chamber.

“Who are you! You must know this is a restricted area!”

Perhaps because it was the queen’s room despite her confinement.

A royal guard stood in front of the door with his sword drawn.

“P-please save us! The Dane people over there…!”

“They killed everyone who fled elsewhere! This is the only escape route…!”

The agents acted like maids in panic and terror, rushing to embrace the guard.

“Stop, stop! I understand, first-“

In the moment the guard hesitated, seeing what appeared to be ordinary maids,

– Squelch!

The daggers they drew pierced the guard’s throat and heart.

“Guh, gack…!”

As the guard convulsed and spat blood, the agents tossed his dying body aside and immediately threw open the chamber door.

—-

Eleonora’s chamber was quiet, as if detached from the commotion outside.

An empty room without a single lady-in-waiting. A woman with an expressionless face sat on an antique bed, holding a dagger.

“…You are not palace maids. Who are you? What business do you have, coming to me so rudely?”

A low, cold voice.

Eleonora looked at the infiltration team members in maid uniforms with emotionless eyes.

“Princess…?”

The infiltration team members couldn’t hide their bewilderment.

Contrary to their expectations of finding her bound or sprawled in misery, she appeared remarkably composed.

“Princess… calling me that means you’ve come from the Empire.”

“Yes, yes! I am Silen of the Imperial Intelligence Department! Emperor Leopold ordered us to rescue Your Highness, which is why we’ve come to you like this.”

The maid in charge of the infiltration team knelt on one knee and bowed her head.

“My brother… says he will rescue me…”

‘…Now of all times?’

Eleonora looked down at the prostrate agent with a faint smile.

She had wondered what was happening when she heard the absurd news that Dane people had attacked, but it turned out to be the Empire’s doing to reclaim her.

It was truly ironic.

“Your Highness, we must leave the palace quickly. Other agents are buying time, but they won’t hold out for long.”

The agents guarding the corridor from the doorway urged Eleonora, who seemed oddly relaxed.

Her reaction was strange, but the situation was too urgent to worry about such things.

“Sigh… Yes. I should leave. I understand.”

Eleonora sighed lightly, rose from the bed, and approached the agents.

“But where should we go? The entire palace is under alert.”

“There’s a secret passage leading outside the palace. We will guide you.”

Eleonora put on the robe the agents handed her to conceal her face, then left the annex with them.

Meanwhile, some agents remained in the annex to fabricate evidence.

An agent resembling Eleonora dressed in the queen’s clothes and took her life on the bed, while others began setting fire to the annex.

Before long, the entire annex began to burn.

—-

“A fire…?”

The warriors and infiltration agents fighting in the corridor could clearly see the flames engulfing the entire corridor.

Warriors who welcomed death and agents who didn’t spare their lives.

Their battle was nearing its end.

Of the eleven agents, only three remained alive, but the Dane warriors had also been reduced to two by the fierce attacks of agents who charged in prepared to die together.

The elderly warrior had perished with his heart pierced, and the middle-aged man who wielded flames had burned together with an agent who had charged at him carrying an oil pouch.

Only the female warrior wielding the lightning spear and the young man shooting ice remained.

Their armor was torn and broken in various places.

“Was it a diversion…!”

“Yes. Did you think we were wasting time meaninglessly? While you’ve been wasting time here, Princess Eleonora has already left the annex and is escaping outside.”

The commanding agent smiled as he pulled out a glass vial from inside his clothes.

The other two agents also produced identical vials.

The mission was successful, so their only remaining task was to kill these warriors and sacrifice themselves.

It was time to use their trump card they had been saving.

Without hesitation, the agents drank the berserker potion in the glass vials.

A sensation like lava erupting in their stomachs. Their reason gradually faded as destructive instincts surged.

“Huu… huuuu…!”

Their eyes became covered with bloodshot veins, and saliva dripped from their mouths.

Veins bulged and writhed over muscles hidden beneath their armor.

The berserker potion that stripped away reason, consumed all life force, and made them rampage until death.

With this, they had a chance against the two remaining warriors.

With their reason completely gone, they would likely kill each other after defeating the warriors.

“Hmm…? Not killing, but rescue? No, why would…?”

The sword-wielding warrior tilted his head in confusion, but the agents could no longer hear his voice.

True to its creation in the Empire’s alchemy workshop, the potion’s effects spread too quickly.

“RAAAAAAAH!”

The agents, transformed into madmen, charged fiercely at the warriors.

Inside the burning annex, they killed each other, spilling blood and entrails.

Until the flames consumed them all.