383 Sweets Shop Attempted Kidnapping

Tiara peeked out from behind me as the corpse of the assassin fell onto the ground.

"Is it ok now?"

"Yes, it's ok now," I assured her.

She stepped out from behind me to look at the assassin.

I'd thought that she might feel disgusted over the dead body but aside from some surprise and maybe a little apprehension, she did not look too distressed about it.

Perhaps she has seen something like this before?

As though reading my mind, Aria spoke up from behind me, "This is not the first time that the princess has been targeted, Young Mistress Nilm."

I spun around to look at the maid, "Eh?! You mean this has happened before?"

"Not this close to Her Highness, but there have been attempts made. Not just on the Third Princess, but also on the other members of the Royal Family as well."

Ah… Politics again… Can't say I'm surprised though…

"Being a member of the Royal Family is hard huh… But what would anyone gain from this? What would they even get for trying to assassinate the other Royal Family members?"

"There are a lot of reasons for such a thing, Young Mistress Nilm. Some nobles might wish for a specific prince or princess to inherit the throne and find the others a threat or a nuisance. Thus, they might decide the easiest method is to get rid of the other candidates."

I feel like there's the hidden meaning that even Tiara's siblings might be involved in this too.

Well… It is something that is to be expected I guess… There are many Royal Family members but there is only one throne.

For the ambitious ones, they would not settle for second place and would definitely want to claim the thrones for themselves.

I've yet to meet the other siblings within the Royal Family so I don't know if this is just pure speculation and that they are all friendly with each other, or they were all secretly plotting to kill one another.

I looked at the assassin that was currently being disposed of, "Well… At least there's only one."

Katsuki shook her head, her daggers still held at the ready in her hands, "Forgive me Mistress, but there are more of them outside. We have been fighting with them for a while now and this one managed to slip past."

"Eh? How many are outside?"

Before she could answer, the windows of the store shattered and several cloaked figures came jumping in.

"Get the princess! We don't need to beat them, just take her!!" One of them shouted.

Chasing after the hooded people were the maids from our Family, all of them cutting down the kidnappers from behind without mercy.

But despite their comrades being cut down from behind, they did not slow down their advance in the slightest and continued rushing towards us.

Aruule and his staff were all cowering in the corner of the store, obviously terrified of what was happening in front of them. I'd bet none of them expected this to happen when they heard the princess was visiting today.

Aria and the Royal Knights quickly arranged themselves in front of us in a defensive wall, meeting the charge of those kidnappers head on.

Just in case, I used [Screened] to inspect some of the kidnappers to see if there were any strong people amongst them and… What?

What the hell?

They're weak… Like the strongest only has around fifty in their stats… I could handle them myself too.

I guess all they have going for them is their numbers which they used to get past our maids?

They probably came here thinking that they could just throw numbers at us as we could not stop all of them or something.

Well… Right now they're rushing at the metal wall formed by the Royal Knights who cut down the kidnappers with frightening efficiency. It's obvious that these guards were elites and the way they swung their swords showed no wasted movements.

Even when another took the place of the kidnapper they just cut down, they did not panic or hesitate in the swinging of their weapons, making it look like they were farmers cutting down a wheatfield with their scythe.

Despite the kidnappers' best efforts, with the Royal Knights in front and our Nilm Family maids behind, they had no chance in this encounter it seems.

But were they really thinking that they could get to the princess like this? Actually, I'm already surprised that they even managed to gather this many people to be willing sacrifices for this… You guys are literally just throwing your lives away, you know?

Is this really worth--

I felt the hair at the back of my neck stand and I pulled out my Light Sword and raised it up behind me in a defensive stance.

There, a robed figure who had somehow gotten past everyone else was descending towards me with his sword raised above his head.

Oh, I noticed that his bottom half seemed to be encased in shadows… This guy must be an Umbramancer who made use of the shadows to sneak here while the others have our guards' attention.

Before his sword could reach me however, Katsuki had appeared behind him with her daggers stretched towards the side.

A second passed and the figure's head, arms and legs were separated from his body before crashing into the ground in a heap.

Wow… Katsuki actually moved so fast that I could barely see her… It's been a while since I last saw her stats, I wonder what it's like now?

[Name: Katsuki

Title: Mistress Aster's Personal Maid, Aster's Watcher

Race: Inugami

Stats:

290 Strength

510 Dexterity

210 Endurance

400 Magic

Skills:

Assassination (Tier 2), Cooking (Tier 2), Cleaning (Tier 2), Gardening (Tier 1), Hunting (Tier 2), Martial Skill-(Dagger Proficiency (Tier 2), Throwing Proficiency (Tier 2), Sword Proficiency (Tier 1), Unarmed Proficiency (Tier 2))

Magic Skills:

Umbramancy (Tier 2), Pyromancy (Tier 2), Mana Management (Tier 1)

Unique Skill:

Mistress Sense]

Woah, woah… How hard has she been training herself to improve so much in this short amount of time?!

And what's this?! She has a Unique Skill too?! What's with that name though?

I wonder if I can scan it to see what it does?

[Mistress Sense - Obtained from having undying love and devotion to her Mistress. Able to passively sense most physical and magical threats directed at her Mistress.]

…

I know Katsuki likes to serve me but I did not know it was to the extent that would grant her a Unique Skill like that…

This is the first Unique Skill I've seen someone else possess aside from myself…

I'm guessing this was how Katsuki knew about any attacks aimed at me even when they were far away, like the assassin that tried to snipe me when I was at school the other day.

"Mistress, are you alright?" Katsuki asked, casually wiping her blades with a cloth to clean them of the blood.

"I'm fine but… Shouldn't we be trying to capture a few of them for questioning or something? You know… Find out their base or even why they are doing this."

"We have already done that, Mistress. They had started attacking us outside while you were still enjoying your sweets, so we have already captured a few of them for us to interrogate later, Mistress. These ones are all unnecessary and we will not risk endangering you by trying to hold back."

Ah, that makes more sense, though calling them 'unnecessary' is a little…

"Big sister…" Tiara whimpered while hugging me. "Are they all bad people trying to eat me?"

I patted her head, "Yeah… These are the bad people that your papa and mama told you about. But don't worry, you have us to protect you!"

"Unnggh… But I'm troubling all of you… How long more before I'm strong enough to protect myself from them?"

"Err…I think that question might be better suited for asking Odeta instead…" I admitted.

Especially when I haven't really been hands on with her training so far… But from an outsider's perspective, I think she might still need a few more years to reach that stage… Of course I don't have the heart to tell her that…

Tiara nodded at me with sparkly eyes and went back to watching the fight while hugging me.

Well… I say fight but it really is just a one sided massacre at this point…

They were already down to the last few people and even those guys were getting cut down as we speak…

Suffice to say, this plan of theirs was a total failure… Probably because they did not expect the Nilm Family to be involved as well.

Soon enough, there's a pile of dead bodies in the middle of the sweets shop.

Aria went up to Aruule and curtsied, "Forgive us sir Aruule, the Royal Family shall compensate you properly for this inconvenience. If you would allow us to clean up this store for you as well, we would be very grateful."

"Ahbahhuh?" He stuttered back.

"I shall take that as your confirmation. Thank you for your cooperation."

Aria then nodded at the other maids from our family and they immediately began to clean up, which included repairing all the broken pieces of furniture and windows with utmost efficiency. I didn't even know they could do that.

Ignoring that, Katsuki came up to me, "Mistress, we have found the hideout for this cult. Would you like us to exterminate them?"

Is that even a question? Of course!

In fact, take me along too!!

Wait, did you say cult?