Does the mechanical girl dream of the Messiah?

Chapter 40: Constraints

"So, your name is Ella Hepper..."

After putting on her shirt and trousers again, Lunicia finally adjusted her mentality to a normal level.

After all, not everyone is thick-skinned enough to keep their face from blushing and their heart from beating even when they are kissed by force and bumped into by their travel companion. When Ashatherine pushed the door in, Lunicia almost jumped out of the bed with a red face - the reason why she almost did so was simply because she didn't have the strength to break free from Ella's arms at that time.

Fortunately, Ella herself seemed to be quite ashamed of this. After glancing at Ashatherin's confused expression, she just let go of Lunicia with a red face, and then covered her face with her hands facing the wall.

This gave Lunicia the opportunity to use holy healing to restore her strength and put on her clothes.

And now, three people are sitting side by side on the bed, from left to right are Lunicia, Ella, and Ashetherin.

This was entirely Ashtherin's own decision - Lunicia didn't think that this girl named Ella Hepper would run away or do anything bad to her.

"Ella, you can call me Ella."

The pink-haired girl had also put on a shirt and did not forget to tie her own blue headband on the side of her ear. Even so, she did not look as "calm" as the two people next to her. A suspicious blush still floated on her cheeks, all the way to her ears, and even her voice had a sweet tremor.

Lunetia felt uncomfortable all over.

Ashlee didn't care - she had never understood the current situation from the beginning. To her, at most, she regarded Ella as a suspicious person who had made advances towards Lunicia.

As for why she could let Ella go, letting this suspicious girl go...

……

“Lord Savior…Lord Savior…?”

Ella knelt on the ground, opened her hands, and wanted to cast a spell on the seriously injured Lunicia - but she recalled desperately that whether as a spell swordsman or a secret book mage, she had no spells that could be used for healing. Killing people, casting curses, waking up dead things, changing the environment... Those spells were convenient and useful in battle and daily life, but none of them could be used to heal wounds or bring the dead back to life.

Her hands were shaking as she finally pulled out a few bottles of potion from her waist bag.

Ella had no skills in mixing potions. These were all potions she bought from the pharmacy. The potions mixed by professional potion masters had all kinds of magical effects. Even the most basic recovery potion seemed extraordinary. However, the potions in her hands were just the most ordinary ones. They were "good value" and inexpensive, and were specially supplied to adventurers who could not afford the money.

Using the most common herbs, cheap auxiliary materials, and rough mixing techniques, we finally got this so-called therapeutic potion that only accelerates bleeding and promotes self-healing of wounds.

Ella unscrewed the cork, lifted Lunicia's chin, and poured the almost tasteless light green potion into her mouth. She knew that it would not have any effect at all.

The glass bottle fell to the ground and shattered.

The pink-haired girl was on the verge of collapse. Spells, potions, swords... she had no other options. Nothing she had could save the life of the person in front of her. Lunicia's heart was still beating. Even though she had lost consciousness, she was still breathing tenaciously. However, in Ella's eyes, this was just a last gasp of a seriously injured dying person. She had almost no chance of survival.

Immersed in despair, Ella drew the purple-bladed longsword from her waist.

"I'm sorry, I can't go on with you."

With a bitter smile on his lips, he placed his fingers on the hilt of the sword, raised it, and placed it around his neck.

The blade shining with purple light was extremely sharp. Just a slight touch would quietly cut the smooth skin, leaving a red mark.

With just a light touch, the secret technique of last resort can be completed. The girl's life will be passed to Lunicia along the blade, and death will flow from Lunicia's body to the girl's body along the blade. The spell of life and death has no price. If there must be a price, it is the life of the caster.

Before that, Ella's hand stopped.

She saw the light.

Inorganic, emotionless, empty blue light.

……

"So it was Ella who carried me back..."

Lunicia held her forehead and looked like she had a headache.

In fact, Lunicia's memory ended when Systine left. Since then, she has been in a coma and has no idea what happened in the outside world. She can only rely on Ashlee and Ella's additional explanations to review the past.

At that time, Ella carried the seriously injured Lunicia back to where Ashtherin was. As the city was in chaos, the group could only come to Ella's temporary base to rest, which was the underground cave where they were now.

This place is located in the "North District" of Nosawi, and is part of a complex underground cave network in the North District. Although she didn't know where the dangerous elements who originally relied on this network for their livelihood had disappeared to, Ella occupied one of them without any guilt and transformed it into her temporary base.

"Carlos, where's Carlos?"

As if she suddenly remembered something, Lunicia looked around, but did not see the little boy she knew. She turned her head to look at Ashlee, who nodded calmly.

"I sent him to the local church's evacuation team."

"It's the Church of the Goddess of Prosperity." Ella added, "They don't know much about the situation. Lord Savior, don't worry. What's happening here now has nothing to do with them."

Hearing this, Lunicia heaved a sigh of relief, and leaned against the rock wall beside the bed, looking quite relaxed, and said, "The priests of the Goddess of Prosperity are indeed good at raising children. But what is the Savior?"

She just realized that she didn't know since when, she was suddenly given an inexplicable title by the girl in front of her who she had only known for less than an hour - after all, Lunicia was just a fledgling paladin. Even though she had learned superb sword skills from Sestin, the gap between her and the real strong ones was like an ant compared to a dragon. The title of savior given to her was simply ridiculous.

"The savior is... the savior, right?"

Ella's tone was a little confused. Even though her face was flushed, she still looked straight into Lunicia's eyes. That look full of admiration made Lunicia feel uncomfortable.

“So, you’re referring to me, right…?”

Having said that, Lunicia felt a little unsure.

Of course, Ella still stared at her with that overly hot gaze, as if she couldn't help but stick out her tongue to lick those gentle brown pupils. The girl gently hugged her shoulders, as if even she couldn't stand this kind of eye contact. She seemed to be suppressing something, and this suppression was extremely obvious in Lunicia's eyes.

She was suppressing the urge to devote herself.

If emotions could be expressed directly in reality, everyone would probably see the long string of question marks on Lunesia's head. She had never known Ella before, so naturally she couldn't understand why she had such an attitude towards herself.

Of course, it was impossible for them to know each other before, and there was no such experience as amnesia in Lunicia's life!

"Yes, you are the savior."

As she said this, Lunicia could clearly see that Ella's right hand was shaking.

It seemed that she was trying her best to resist the urge to reach out and touch Lunicia's cheek - which made Lunicia inadvertently move her butt to the side a few times. Even though she knew rationally that the other party didn't mean that to her, but rather the other way around, she still felt quite awkward emotionally. If she hadn't been so calm, she might have been scared and ran away.

It’s the same even if the other person is a top beauty!

"Ashe, do you know what the savior is talking about?"

She shifted her gaze to look at Ashlee who was on the other side of Ella, and the latter just shook her head slightly.

"Maybe you know, maybe you don't?"

"How can there be two possibilities?"

Ashlee gently stroked her temple with her index finger. At some point, her arm had returned to its original shape, without any trace of being hit by a sniper rifle. "My memories belong to the distant past, just like snowflakes on a snowy field, broken into pieces and buried in the abyss and rift valleys. Maybe there was such content in my past memories, but now it is blank."

This answer once again brought the topic back to Lunicia.

"Well, um... can you please not call me that?"

Scratching her face with her index finger, Lunicia didn't say the rest of the sentence - it was quite awkward - of course, her current behavior was able to fully reflect her inner embarrassment.

It was so embarrassing that even someone like her who loved chatting with others had the initiative snatched away from her during the conversation, and she could only express her opinions in this feeble protest-like way.

Ella blinked and stared at Lunicia for a while before saying, "Well, I don't know the Savior's name yet."

This can be regarded as a disguised approval of Lunicia's proposal.

Hearing this, Lunicia breathed a sigh of relief again - she felt that her mood today was just like she was on an airship driven by a third-rate helmsman who had never passed the driving test, bouncing up and down in the sea of ​​clouds, and finally crashing into a sky island, destroying the plane and killing everyone on board.

"My name is Lunicia, Lunicia Agris. Just call me Luna."

"Then, Lady Luna."

"You don't need to be a big man..."

"Well, Luna."

"Yes, yes, just call me like that!"

Lunicia nodded repeatedly as if relieved, as if she wanted to hammer this name into Ella's mind with a headbutt.

"So……"

The pink-haired girl seemed to have figured something out. She moved closer to Lunicia, picked up Lunicia's hand from the bed, held it in front of her, and then gently pressed her lips on the back of her hand.

"From now on, Ella Heper belongs to Lunitia Agris."

Just hearing these words, Lunicia's pupils contracted violently.

This was not just a simple statement - it was a magical contract compressed into one sentence. "Ella Heper" referred to everything Ella Heper had, her life, her power, her freedom, her property, her body and soul. This contract, which only required her unilateral consent, sold out everything she had. With just one sentence, everything she had belonged to Lunicia.

Two pink butterflies surrounded Ella's body. One landed on Lunisia's chest, melted into her body, and became dependent on her soul. The other landed at the intersection of Ella's shoulder, neck and collarbone, and was imprinted there, turning into a pink mark.

Ella Heper's azure eyes were hot and intoxicated, as if that was her supreme glory.

Chapter 41: Prelude to Hunting

The head would be shattered into pieces with just a slight step of the black iron high heels.

For Sestine, who is wearing black and red armor, the life of ordinary people is such a light thing.

She didn't even draw her sword - she simply released her restrained strength, and the soldiers who had ambushed her fell down like ears of rice. The puppets of Iron Leviathan were lurking in the dark, and if Sethin got into trouble they would help - but now it seemed there was no need for that at all.

Before the duel with Lunitia, Systin had thoroughly searched the town hall of Nosavi. However, after searching all the rooms, including Nikita Kuridel's private chamber, Systin still found no trace of Nikita himself.

Not only Nikita himself, in fact, except for some guards who fought back, Sestin did not find any trace of any staff in the city hall. Important information such as accounts and documents were also missing. It seemed that they had learned about the whereabouts of the "Natya's Legacy" group at least a day ago and started to prepare for evacuation, so that they were able to escape so cleanly shortly after the other party officially launched the attack.

They had no intention of resisting from the beginning, so after the feint attack troops were exhausted, the regular army of "Legacy of Natya" quickly gained the upper hand and won victory after victory in the city - perhaps even they themselves would be surprised.

After walking out of the City Hall building, there was a battle between Lunicia and Systin. The magnificent City Hall building was also cut in half by the sword wind during the battle. Naturally, no possible clues were left.

It seemed that Nikita's position was lost in the chaos, but this little thing was not a problem for the Iron Leviathans.

Countless scouts had already been floating in the air above Nosavi. They had deployed optical camouflage to monitor the situation, but after noticing that Nikita Kuridel had disappeared from where he was supposed to be, they received an order to search for him in the widest possible range. The overclocked scout network could not only monitor the city of Nosavi, but also expand the surveillance range to outside the city. Both the ground and underground networks were within Setin's sight.

In this case, no matter whether Nikita chose to evacuate directly from the ground or escape through the underground secret passage, it would be of no avail - Systin's only remaining golden eyes were staring at him.

It was as if that was not an eye, but a golden sun, cold yet scorching the earth. As long as one was stared at by that eye, one would feel the whole body trembling even if they were thousands of miles apart.

She was aloof and cold, but even so, one could feel that she was in a good mood.

She clearly wasn't laughing, but she seemed to hear a sneering sound, mocking the Earl who could not escape at all costs.

However, Nikita did not seem panicked at all.

As he fled from the town hall under the cover of guards, he did not look like he was escaping, but rather like he was experiencing an aristocratic parade, preparing to hunt foxes with an air rifle. Their destination did not seem to be a refuge, but the royal gardens of Twick, where Grand Duke Ivanov was waiting for him, drinking and talking about state affairs with him.

Even though the whole city was filled with spies from the Restoration Army, they were still as blind as if they could not see their movements, hear their voices, or smell their scent. It was as if Nikita and his group were in a different world from the Restoration Army. One was in reality, and the other was walking in a mirror. Both Nikita himself and his guards seemed not to have noticed this strange phenomenon. They moved forward calmly and left calmly.

They didn't seem to be fleeing, but rather returning in triumph.

Even now, the guards who had been ambushing nearby rushed forward and pointed their swords at Sestyn, but the latter did not swing his sword or move, but just raised his head in contempt. Their bodies were shattered and blood splattered all over the ground, but Nikita did not show the slightest panic, as if it should be like this, as if everything worked like this. He turned a blind eye to the corpses and flesh, as if they did not exist.

With ease, this attitude is just the right way to describe his demeanor.

No, or rather, he seemed totally out of it.

He was not pretending to be calm, but his way of thinking was completely different from that of normal people. He didn't feel that there was a problem from the bottom of his heart, so he looked calm and composed. Perhaps this was the best explanation.

He wore a red fur coat, decorated with exquisite gold pendants. His waist knife was more of a status symbol than a weapon, and the scabbard was inlaid with gems and pearls in a way that had no aesthetic value. He had rings on every finger, including rubies, cat's eyes, emeralds, sapphires, corals, and amber. His thin gold chains hung from his collar like pyramids, reflecting the eclipse light, looking ominous and strange. All of this made him look more like attending a banquet or traveling, rather than fleeing.

It was almost as if he was mocking the silent hunter in front of him.

The prey is dressed magnificently, the prey stands in front of him with a swagger, the prey is leisurely and unfocused, with no awareness that he is in a hunting ground. No matter which one is taken out, it will make the experienced hunter feel impatient and furious.

And Systin remained expressionless.

She had no intention of making any comments, nor did she show any extra emotions. She just let the north wind whistle and blow up her drooping silver hair, with patches of striking and dangerous orange. It seemed that Nikita's cynical attitude did not create any ripples in her heart at all.

This made Nikita feel uncomfortable, as if the other party was even more abnormal than himself, so that he was pulled back into the situation and had to respond.

“…Ma’am, I don’t think we have to go down the same path.”

In the end, he couldn't help himself and spoke earlier than Sting.

Even so, although he was the one being hunted, his attitude seemed condescending, as if he was just making a friendly proposal and giving a suggestion.

"You are such a selfish person."

Systin didn't respond.

"what?"

"Look at the corpses scattered all over the ground - they are so unlucky. Who did they die for? And the master they were loyal to not only did not show any expression, but even planned to just walk away without changing his expression. Even if we don't ask this shameless Count Kuridel to make any substantial expression, he didn't even show the slightest expression of pain."

"It is their duty to protect me. As long as I am alive, their deaths will not be meaningless." Nikita frowned. "Madam, it was you who took their lives. Why do you put this responsibility on me?"

He looked normal, as if he was having a normal conversation with someone who was holding him accountable. However, Nikita was not in his office, and the person sitting opposite him was not an official he was discussing business with.

She is a Black Knight.

The Black Knight's principles are revenge and punishment, which means slaying evil with a sword.

Although Nikita Kuridel knew that someone wanted to "take his life" not long ago, he actually didn't take it seriously. There were probably thousands of people who wanted to kill him in Mariai alone. For a ruler like him who was more in line with the Ivanov family's taste, it was too troublesome to track down the identities of those people one by one. Therefore, it was not until today that he figured out that it was a woman who put the "want to kill Nikita Kuridel" into practice.