Chapter 21: 21
The moment Michelle stepped out of the Imperial Palace, the Emperor called one of his shadow guards. "Tell the guys in the forest to make sure to finish her off in the ugliest way possible once!" he said though gritted teeth. After that, the shadow guard kneeled and disappeared.
Meanwhile, Michelle took her carriage to the middle of the Imperial City, so she could give the Empeor a chance to give orders to the men in the forest. She went into a random store and bought some simple clothes, so she wouldn't stand out, and went to the city market. There, she saw many interesting things she had never seen in her past life, and it made her smile a bit.
Originally, she only wanted to kill some time in the city, but at the moment, she was curious. And since the most interesting thing about the world was spirit energy, she concentrated on stalls with weapons with spirit stones, and stalls with books.
After walking around for a while, Michelle reached a strange alley. The stalls were much fewer in there, but something was telling Michelle that she should go there.
When Mare saw Michelle's gaze directed at the alley, she got worried. "Master, that place's dangerous," she said in a hushed tone.
Hearing that, Michelle raised a brow. "Why?" she asked, her purple eyes locked on the alley. Just like when she was at the auction house and saw Snow in an egg, she felt an uncomfortable pull towards the alley, like something was resonating with her blood.
Mare noticed Michelle's reaction, but she was still worried about going into the alley. "The alley's rumored to be under control of the Dark Lord!"
"Dark Lord?" Michelle finally turned to look at Mare. "Who's that?" Michelle asked with a questioning look on her face. For Mare to be so afraid of someone showed that he was powerful, and that highly intrigued Michelle.
"No one really knows..." Mare shook her head. "All that's known about him is that he has control over many random places, and that in those places, law is basically nonexistent, because rulers of all countries on the continent don't dare go against him."
Michelle smiled a bit, her purple eyes narrowed. "What a person... Now I'm curious... Do you know anything else about him?"
Mare nodded a bit. "There was once a rumor that the Dark Lord isn't actually a single person, but two equally powerful people. But the rumor quickly died down, and no one looked into it."
"I see..." Michelle's smile widened. "That can mean two things... Either it was such a stupid rumor, that people didn't even bother to spread it, or it's true, and the Dark Lord doesn't want it to be known, so he suppressed the rumor..." she said as she stepped into the alley in front of her. The pull she felt was turning extremely uncomfortable, so she refused to leave without exploring what it was. She knew that if she followed it, she would find something powerful.
"Master, wait!" Mare went after Michelle quickly and followed her into the long dark alley. It was quite funny that even though it was not even noon, the alley was darkish like at dusk.
But Michelle didn't care and just followed the pull until she stopped in front of a door to a sketchy looking store. When Mare saw the store, she felt her blood turn cold. "Master, how about we don't go there...? It's dreadful..." Mare's beast instincts were telling her not to go into the store, but Michelle already raised her hand to knock on the door.
Rhytmically, exactly three times, Michelle knocked her knuckles against the door, her purple eyes calm, but deep within, something red was restless.
After Michelle knocked, the sound of someone running could be heard before the door opened and an old man's face popped out from behind the door. "We're closed now!" he said, his voice raspy.
Michelle raised a brow, the red thing deep within her eyes surging forward, turning her irises from purple to red. But she didn't know about it, and as Mare was standing behind her, she couldn't see it either. So the only one who noticed was the old man, and his attitude instantly changed. "Oh, how could I forget! It's day already, not night... Come in, come in..." he smiled. "With how dark this place is, one can never know if it's day or night!" he complained.
Michelle raised a brow at the change of the old man's attitude, but she entered. Neither she nor Mare noticed that the restless red something in her eyes retracted back deep into the purple of her eyes. "Gramps, what do you sell here?" Michelle asked as she entered the shop with Mare right behind her.
The old man was a bit surprised that Michelle didn't know what he was selling, because if she didn't know, what led her to his shop, but remembering her red eyes, he didn't ask anything. He recognized those eyes, and those with such eyes shouldn't be provoked no matter what.
"Young Lady, this old man doesn't sell anything that would be of interest to a beautiful person like you. This old man just sells skill books aimed at annihilation and killing." The old man thought his words would disgust or scare away Michelle, but instead, she sneered, her eyes glinting with the red for a split of a second.
She was excited. "Can you show me?" she asked quickly.
Seeing her reaction, the old man was momentarily surprised before sighing. He knew that it shouldn't surprise him that someone with eyes like her was interested in killing skills. "Let me show you my collection," he said as he took out a huge chest from underneath a table and opened it with a key.
When Michelle's eyes landed on the chest, she felt the pull turn so strong that she frowned uncomfortably, feeling tightness in her chest. Even in her past life, she never experienced a feeling so strong like the pull she was feeling towards the chest.
The old man was facing the chest so he didn't see Michelle's frown, but Mare noticed and her worry intensified. She knew that Michelle's blood must have been reacting to something in the chest, but it was worrying. If Michelle's reaction was so strong, it meant that the thing in the chest was not only powerful, but dangerous.
Michelle didn't like the feeling in her chest, so she rubbed her temples as the old man unlocked the chest and opened it. When Michelle saw all the books stacked upon themselves, she felt the pull in her increase, but she kept it contained and started looking through the books. And like the old man said, just from the titles of the books, one could see that they were skills for annihilation, massacre and gruesome killings.
Michelle kept looking through the books until she found a book with a name that didn't imply death. "Spirit Clone..." Michelle read out loud, her eyes turning blood-red in an instant as the pull she felt calmed down. She found the book her blood was reacting to. "Gramps, how much for this one?" she asked as she turned her, at the moment red, eyes at the old man.
Mare noticed that Michelle's eyes were red and her eyes widened. She had never seen Michelle like that and it highly worried her.