321. Tensions Raising
Unfolding in Chapter 321 of "The Villainess's Reputation [Kingdom Building]": “Your Highness! Duke Morgen has requested an audience with you,” a maid called out, hurrying... Keep reading!
“Your Highness! Duke Morgen has requested an audience with you,” a maid called out, hurrying through the garden to intercept her.“Sure, lead the way,” Ravenna replied, smoothing her pants and offering a practiced, polite smile.
However, as she followed the girl, something began to feel fundamentally wrong. The maid was taking unnecessarily long routes, weaving through the palace’s secondary halls and taking odd, sharp shifts. Having grown up within these walls, Ravenna knew every corridor and hidden alcove like the back of her hand. This wasn't the way to guest quarters where Duke Morgen should be.
They eventually arrived at a secluded, overgrown corner of the windy garden, a quiet sanctuary that had once been her mother’s favorite place for solitary walks. It was now abandoned, shielded from prying eyes by thick hedges and ancient stone arches.
“Your Highness...” the maid said, finally turning around. Her hands were trembling, and her face was pale as death. “I am really, truly sorry for doing this...”
Ravenna’s eyes narrowed, her weight shifting onto the heels of her feet. She was ready to launch into a lethal strike the moment the girl pulled a weapon or a signal.
“Who sent you?” Ravenna asked, her voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register. “And what exactly are you sorry for?”
The howling winds of the somber day rattled the nearby trees, the sound only heightening the suffocating tension in the garden. Ravenna slid her foot back an inch, preparing to sprint or dodge, her gaze locked on the maid's trembling hands. Whatever the girl was hiding, Ravenna knew it wasn't a dagger or a close-range blade, the stance was all wrong.
Suddenly, time seemed to decelerate.
A blinding, incandescent light bloomed in the girl’s palms, and a wave of searing heat rushed toward Ravenna’s face. Before her mind could even fully process the threat, her instincts screamed. With a flicker of thought, she willed the reputation system into existence.
User: Ravenna Solarius / Joy Cha Kim
Reputation Level: 90 — (998,335 / 1,000,900 EXP)↑
Current Reputation Points: 16,420 RP↑
Titles Unlocked: Raven of the Sun Palace, Unruly Princess, Beast Slayer
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{ View Reputation Log } { Spend Reputation Points }
{ Exchange Items } { Enter Origin Domain }
She slammed her mental focus onto { Enter Origin Domain }. In a heartbeat, 2,000 Points were deducted from her balance.
Ravenna vanished in a literal blink of an eye. An instant later, the secluded garden resounded with a deafening BOOM that shook the very foundations of the nearby palace wing. A massive pillar of fire erupted where she had stood only a millisecond before, turning the quiet sanctuary of her mother’s memories into a roaring, blackened furnace.
“Argh— Cough!”
Ravenna collapsed onto the cold floor of The Office, the Origin Domain, clutching her chest as she hacked through the smoke she’d inhaled in that final microsecond. The distinctive, rhythmic hum of the domain’s machinery continued around her, indifferent to her near-death experience.
“Damn it! It hurts so much!” she hissed, looking down at her hands. Her palms, which she had reflexively thrown up to shield her face, were raw and blistered from the flash-heat of the blast.
She forced herself to stand, her vision swimming and her head throbbing from the violent ringing in her ears. The explosion had been far more powerful than a simple fire spell.
“I expected assassination attempts the moment the decree was read, but suicide bombers?” Ravenna muttered, leaning against a metal desk for support. She looked around her Origin Domain; the steam engines were chugging away, automatically assembling firearms and processing materials according to the complex logic she had programmed. It was a sterile, mechanical contrast to the chaos she had just escaped. “Whoever was behind it, they're getting desperate.”
Empress’s Garden, Imperial Palace, Capital City.
The reverberating explosion thundered throughout the entire palace complex, shattering windows and sending birds spiraling into the sky in a panic. Imperial Guards and knights abandoned their posts, sprinting toward the source of the devastation.
Dame Ocelina was among the first to arrive. She skidded to a halt at the edge of the garden, her face pale as she took in the sight. The garden was a roaring inferno, and a suffocating amount of volatile mana still saturated the air, prickling at the skin of everyone present.
“There’s a body over here!” one of the Imperial Guards shouted, pointing toward a blackened husk near the center of the blast.
Mages from the Imperial Tower arrived soon after, weaving their hands with flowers in them through the air to suppress the flames. As the fire began to leap toward the wooden eaves of the nearby palace wing, they used specialized magic to lift giant torrents of water into the air, dousing the heat.
“We haven’t found any other bodies!” one of the mages called out through the steam.
Just then, a maid ran toward the knights, her face streaked with tears and soot. “But... Her Highness Ravenna! She was headed exactly this way! She was right around here with a maid!”
The shock on the faces of the gathered nobles and guards was palpable. A heavy, sickening silence fell over the garden, broken only by the crackling of charred wood, as the realization set in. Dame Ocelina’s grip tightened on her sword hilt until her knuckles turned white.
“Search every inch of this ash,” Ocelina commanded, her voice trembling with a mixture of fury and dread. “Find the Princess. Now!”