After exhausting nearly the entire collection of luxury baby clothes and accessories at the Summer Bloom boutique, Edward settled the payment with a resigned expression while the shop owner bowed repeatedly in deep gratitude, feeling as though a whole season’s fortune had descended thanks to the arrival of the “Little Queen” of the North.
All the shopping items piled up inside carved wooden boxes were handed directly over to the shop’s courier to be delivered immediately to the grand guest residence at the Central Palace of Gimle, where the House of Silver family was officially staying during the celebrations.
With his hands empty and light again, the family’s journey continued.
The biting cold air of the capital was instantly muffled by the fragrant, enticing aroma billowing all along the sides of the central square street.
”Mother, Edward, look at that!” Elena exclaimed enthusiastically, pointing at a traditional wooden cart surrounded by clouds of warm steam.
The cart was selling Frost-Berry Skewers, a winter specialty consisting of wild northern berries coated in a layer of hot melted sugar caramel, then dipped in toasted almond flakes and mint sugar crystals.
The blend of sweet, fresh sour flavors and the hot-and-cold sensation in the mouth made it the most sought-after winter snack among the citizens of Gimle.
Without waiting for a command, Elena directly pulled Aiden’s hand as they approached the cart, ordering three large skewers with eyes sparkling brightly with excitement.
Duchess Freya smiled gently while watching her two children, whereas Edward stood guard over the surrounding situation with a watchful gaze—his northern border knight instincts never truly taking a break, even amidst the lively market crowd.
In his mother’s embrace, Aiden enjoyed his first bite of the sweet treat.
The warm, melting sensation of caramel combining with the burst of fresh sour berry flavor on his tongue felt just right—allowing him to momentarily enjoy that childlike moment with ease.
Right as Elena was busy blowing on one of Aiden’s caramel skewers so it wouldn’t be too hot, three sturdy men clad in rough gray robes suddenly pushed forward from a gap in the crowd of citizens unexpectedly.
They were hired thugs sent by the third-generation deity-descendant faction—mercenaries deliberately dispatched to trigger a public scandal.
One of them, a bulky thug with a scratch scar on his right cheek, purposely swung his elbow roughly to crash into Elena’s small shoulder.
Slap!
The caramel snack skewer in Elena’s hand slipped and fell, splashing onto the dirty snow on the street.
Elena was startled in shock, her eyes instantly widening as she stared at her younger brother’s ruined snack.
Before the little girl could vent her anger, the bulky thug stepped closer with a defiant gesture, intentionally lowering his body to intimidate her.
”Hey, northern brat!
Don’t you have eyes, huh?!” the thug barked in a loud voice, purposely drawing the attention of everyone around the square.
He didn’t stop there.
With a foul smirk, his rough hand smelling of sweat and street dust reached out to grab Elena’s chin roughly, hurling degrading remarks that amounted to verbal harassment against the border nobility’s children.
”Well, well…
look at this little girl from a noble family.
Pretty indeed, but too bad, her hands and mouth lack proper manners on the streets of the capital!
No wonder northerners are famous as a bunch of uncultured barbarians whose young women are as wild as game beasts!”
Hearing that cheap insult, Edward, standing by his sister’s side, instantly felt his blood boil up to the top of his head.
Green veins bulged prominently on the back of his pale hands, clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white and cracked painfully.
A dense, cold, and suffocating killing aura unconsciously leaked from his body, making the air around the square feel frozen and several nearby civilians coughing directly from shortness of breath.
Edward tried his best to hold back his anger—remembering his mother’s warning not to cause a massive commotion on their first day arriving in the capital.
However, the patience limit of that cold-blooded genius shattered into pieces the moment that damned thug continued his sentence in an increasingly harassing tone.
”Tsk, no wonder her mother is also an arrogant bitch acting all holy up in the North—”
BAM!
Before the thug could finish his foul sentence, a high-velocity punch relying purely on raw physical strength and trained muscles without the slightest bit of magic assistance landed squarely on his right jaw.
The sound of cracking bones combined with a shrill scream echoed through the quietness of the market.
The bulky thug was sent spinning backward through the air for three meters before finally crashing into the snack cart, smashing it to pieces.
Amidst the chaos and Edward’s outburst of anger, Elena, standing right beside her mother, didn’t immediately join in the rampage or scream hysterically like a child her age.
Behind her wide, startled eyes, the smart brain of the little girl was spinning like a high-precision gear wheel.
As a daughter of the House of Silver who had been accustomed since childhood to border political intrigue and high-level aristocratic plots, Elena possessed an analytical intuition far beyond her years.
Wait a minute…
something is strange, Elena thought quickly, her eyes darting wildly to observe the situation around the square, which had suddenly gone silent.
With her extraordinary intelligence, she dissected the pattern of this incident in a matter of seconds.
First, the streets of the capital were heavily guarded by palace patrols, but why wasn’t a single guard in sight when this thug started shouting loudly?
Second, these thugs weren’t afraid of dying or getting into trouble with high-ranking noble families…
unless…
they were indeed intentionally paid to provoke a reaction!
Elena’s sharp gaze swept all around, tracing the gaps in the crowd until it finally caught a suspicious shadow at the end of the alley across the street—a faint flash of magical luminescence from beneath someone’s black hood who was holding an octagonal-shaped object.
A memory-recording magic stone!
Elena concluded in her heart, her heart beating fast as she realized the foul scheme behind this incident. This chapter was copied from novelping.com without permission.
Damn it!
They deliberately harassed us in public to provoke a riot, record our violent reaction, and then twist the evidence so the Silver family would look fierce and disrespectful of the capital’s laws before the nobles!
Although she was still young, Elena instantly understood that Edward’s rampage was precisely what the enemy side was waiting for.
However, instead of panicking, the little girl’s small lips curled into a chilling, eerie smile—Elena inherited that entirely calculative nature from her father.
At the same time, right after the first thug was smashed backward, Duchess Freya acted swiftly to protect her youngest child’s mental state.
With a gentle yet firm motion, both of her hands turned Aiden’s body and buried his face into her embrace.
”Shh…
don’t look, sweetheart.
Good children shouldn’t watch bad spectacles like that,” Duchess Freya whispered softly near Aiden’s ear, burying the toddler’s head deep into the warm embrace of her chest so he wouldn’t witness the sight of blood and violence in public.
Aiden, who was actually a veteran of the Pantheon with an old soul, could only blink resignedly within the darkness of his mother’s chest.
Well, even though I wanted to watch close-quarters combat live…
but never mind, the comfort of acting like a baby must still be maintained, Aiden thought relaxedly while enjoying the warmth of the lavender scent from his mother’s body.
Meanwhile, while Aiden’s vision was covered, the brief and extremely one-sided fight erupted.
The two remaining henchmen were startled in horror upon seeing their colleague unconscious with scattered missing teeth.
Driven by panic and desperation, both lunged forward simultaneously, swinging fists the size of coconut shells toward Edward blindly.
”Stupid,” Edward thought.
Edward didn’t even turn his face to look at them seriously.
As a top-tier genius swordsman of the border accustomed to cleaving giant monsters, dealing with weaponless street thugs hardly felt like a challenge at all.
With master-level reflex speed and terrifying pure physical strength, Edward welcomed the charge like a deadly ballet dancer.
Slap!
Thud!
Crack!
In just three short seconds, the clash ended decisively.
Edward tilted his head slightly to avoid the first blow, then delivered an open-palm strike that hit the first henchman’s solar plexus, causing him to collapse kissing the ground while vomiting gastric fluids.
Before the second henchman could even blink, Edward had already grabbed the man’s robe collar with one hand, lifted his body into the air, and mercilessly drove his knee straight into the enemy’s stomach.
Thud!
The second henchman spasmed violently, his eyes rolling white before finally collapsing to join his friend in a pile of snow that was now turning reddish.
The atmosphere of the square suddenly fell completely silent.
Not a single citizen or merchant dared to breathe too loudly.
They stared at the terrifying sight with wide-open eyes—three bulky thugs notorious for their ferocity on the capital’s streets were now lying bruised and helpless in less than half a minute, beaten to a pulp by a handsome young noble who didn’t even break a sweat.
In the hidden corner of the alley across the street, the pockmarked man holding the memory-recording magic stone did not panic at all.
Instead, a cunning smile grew wider on his face while his fingers stroked the surface of the magic stone, which was still warm.
Good…
this raw, unfiltered footage of violence has been captured perfectly into the magic stone, the pockmarked man thought triumphantly, feeling that his provocation mission had successfully driven the House of Silver to commit acts of violence in public.
Phase one of the plan is complete!
All that’s left is to spread this footage to the court council, and the good name of the northern noble family will be utterly destroyed!
On the other side, Elena, who had been observing the pockmarked man’s suspicious movements, immediately pieced together the strategy in her head.
A cold smile etched itself onto her tiny lips.
You want to play dirty by twisting the evidence?
Let’s see whose scenario falls apart first.
Without wasting time or waiting for Edward and Duchess Freya to finish sorting out the situation, Elena used her small stature to slip agilely among the civilian crowd still frozen in fear.
Her small feet sprinted away from the square area, tracing the cobbled alley turn toward the quieter old commercial district.
Elena’s purpose was very clear—to find the right authorities to use as a “legal weapon” to turn the tables.
Several minutes passed with ragged breathing, and Elena finally stopped in front of an old-style tavern with a half-rusted signboard—The Drunken Griffin Tavern.
From the cracks of the slightly open wooden window, the sharp scent of malt liquor mixed with cheap tobacco smoke wafted out.
Without hesitation, Elena pushed the heavy wooden door of the tavern until it creaked loudly.
The atmosphere inside the dim bar instantly went silent.
Several drunkards and ferocious mercenaries turned around, but their sharp gazes shriveled instantly upon seeing the crest of nobility of the House of Silver on the child’s luxury coat.
Elena’s sharp gaze swept the entire room until she found the figure she was looking for at the darkest corner table.
There, separated from the crowd of drunkards and the musty smell of the bar, sat a sturdy figure with a posture as stiff as a stone statue.
He wore a formal silver uniform clean of bar dust, complete with a dark sapphire-blue outer cloak behind his armor and the holy Sun emblem carved gleamingly on his chest armor. You are reading on NovelPing, the official source.
Even inside that dim and isolated room, he still wore a flat, expressionless silver metal mask on his face—an absolute rule and sacred oath of the God’s Punishing Legion forbidding its members from showing their faces to the public under any circumstances.
On the wooden table before him, his iron-gloved hand was holding a small Magic pen (a magical item for writing), diligently recording a secret investigative report into a thick black leather-bound notebook.
That elite investigator was Inquisitor “Isolde Nachtigall”, one of the cold-blooded senior investigators from the Winterfell Holy Inquisition assigned to hunt down the remnants of the heretical cult in Gimle.
Without hesitation, Elena stepped purposefully toward the corner table.
Her small boots creaked on the dirty wooden floor, creating rhythmic tapping sounds that drew the female inquisitor’s attention.
Inquisitor Isolde stopped her pen’s scratching, then slowly looked up.
A burst of cold and intimidating aura emanated from behind the two small eyeholes of her silver mask.
However, that oppressive aura receded instantly when she caught the Horned Wolf emblem of the House of Silver displayed elegantly on the luxury coat of the child before her.
Isolde immediately stood up stiffly, showing the minimum gesture of respect typical of fanatical troops who rarely bowed to secular nobility.
”Young Lady of the House of Silver?”
Isolde’s voice sounded muffled, cold, and firm from behind her metal mask.
Yet, beneath the rigid tone typical of an inquisitor, there was a subtle vibration hidden—a faint yearning deep within.
”This filthy place is not a playground for a northern noble child.
What is your business coming to find me?”
Then Elena spoke in the tone of a frightened child,”Lady Inquisitor…
praise the light god, I have finally found a holy law enforcer!” Elena whispered with a voice trembling with despair, purposely raising her intonation so that the tavern patrons in the distance could hear her.
“My family and I… we just saw someone extremely suspicious.”
Hearing the words “suspicious people” uttered by the noble child, Isolde’s body instantly tensed up.
The small notebook and pen in her hand were snapped shut with a sharp clicking sound.
An inquisitor’s professional instinct was instantly triggered.
”Speak clearly, Young Lady,” Isolde hissed, her voice turning as sharp as a dagger from behind her silver mask.
“What did you actually see?”
Elena caught her breath for a moment, making her act look increasingly convincing before the inquisitor and the tavern patrons who had begun paying attention to them.
”Earlier…
when my family passed the square, there was a group of hired thugs who intentionally caused a commotion and provoked my brother’s anger,”
Elena recounted with a pitifully trembling tone, hiding the cunning behind her eyes.
“But that’s not the scariest part. When I observed the situation, I saw someone in the corner of the alley holding a pitch-black magical stone with a terrifying scarred face!”
Elena looked up, staring straight into the eye slits of Isolde’s silver mask with an expression full of feigned worry.
”As a citizen loyal to the holy church of the Goddess of Light, I feel those people are not just ordinary street thugs.
They must be part of a heretical cult deliberately planning a vicious terror to disrupt security in the capital!”
Hearing the specific description of the black artifact and the suspicious scarred-face perpetrator, the atmosphere around the bar’s corner table suddenly became very cold and dense.
The veins on Isolde’s iron-gloved hands tightened strongly.
For the God’s Punishing Legion, the mention of a “heretical cult” and “terror in the capital” was the highest emergency alarm that could not be ignored for even a second.
Isolde growled suppressedly from behind her silver metal mask.
A sharp, holy killing aura intensified, making the air inside the bar feel suffocating.
”A heretical cult daring to play around with cursed artifacts right under our noses…” Isolde hissed coldly, full of suppressed anger.
She snatched her small notebook, slipped it into her cloak pocket with a rough motion, and firmly gripped the hilt of the long sword at her waist.
”Where exactly is their location, Young Lady?
Show me the way right now!
I will annihilate those accursed heretics in the name of the light’s justice!”
Behind the shadows of her hood, the corners of Elena’s lips lifted into a very cold and lethal subtle smile.
Then, Elena’s heart hummed softly, weaving a verse of victory that echoed only inside her own mind:
”Beneath the freezing skies of Gimle, they weave a trap to bring down the northern wolf.”
”Yet upon this chessboard of fate, who is truly the pawn, and who is the player?”
”Even the silver-armored angels do not realize, that the sharpest sword…
is swung not from the hand, but from deceit.”