Princess in distress!

Sylvia, the sole heir of King Rages and Theodora. She will be 17 next month. She is excited about her coming-of-age ceremony. Everyone will treat her as an adult from then. She will be able to go to the tavern she was forbidden to go to. She always wanted to drink the Moonberry wine. The strongest and tastiest mead in the entire kingdom. But mead is a no-no for her until she is 17. What a load of crap! She is already 16 and months away from becoming 17. What in the world will change in a month? Adults are unreasonable really! Today is particularly boring for her. Every morning she practices swordplay with Argos but today's session has been canceled. He seems to have gone out of the capital for some urgent reason. In her everyday life, everything is so boring except for when she is with Argos. He has a certain charm that she is very fond of. She doesn't know why but when she is with him her heart beats faster and her ear feels so hot. Maybe she is weird! Nowadays she feels that she likes Argos. She heard from her maid that after her coming-of-age ceremony, she would probably get married. Maybe she should speak to her mother about how she feels about Argos. If she can get married to Argos, life will become so astounding! Just thinking about marrying Argos is making her ears heat up again.

Suddenly she hears a commotion outside her chamber. *BAM, Her door bursts open, and her maid Belle rushes in and locks the door immediately. Sylvia gets frightened by her entrance.

- What happened Belle? What's going on outside?

She is gasping for air and isn't able to speak properly.

- Ou...Outside, Hunters... kill... Killing everyone.

Now Sylvia genuinely gets frightened.

- WHAT? Why? Why are the hunters killing everyone?

- The castle is under attack, my lady. They will be here soon. We should get out of here.

- But why would the hunters attack us? Where are mother and father? I need to get to them.

- My lady, we can try to find them after we get out of this room safely. They are just outside we should leave this room first.

- But where will we go? We can't go through the door.

- There is another way. Come with me.

Belle runs towards the giant mirror on the left side of the bed. She grabs a heavy book from the bedside tabletop and smashes the mirror with it. Behind the mirror a small hole, Belle takes out a shiny stone. It's like a stick at one end but has a hexagonal crystal shape at the other end. She pushes the long side through the hole and turns it anticlockwise. Something clicks on the other end and she removes the key slides the panel and reveals a hidden passage!

Sylvia is astonished! "Has this always been here?!" She has been living in this very room since she was about 5 or so. She had no idea about this till this moment.

Belle requests her to hurry, "Please my lady, there is no time to dwell on petty surprises now. Please follow me." Saying so she squeezes inside the narrow passage. The passage is large enough for a person but not big enough to give enough mobility. She slowly crawled a bit further and turned her head to see what Sylvia was doing. Sylvia has just put the upper half of her body inside the passage and suddenly,

*BAM BAM BAM

Heavy thuds on the door. Both of their hearts almost jumped out of their body. Belle shouts, "HURRY..."

Sylvia picks up the pace and hurries inside. The thuds on the door are getting louder and just when she gets inside the passage completely the sound stops. She looks back and pays close attention to hear even the faintest sound. And she does pick up something. The sounds feel like heavy footsteps. Someone is running toward the door from afar. The sound gets closer and closer and just before coming right in front of the door the sound stops but just for a moment. With a very loud noise, the door breaks apart and a tall and buffed-up middle-aged hunter rushes in. Just before hitting the door he did a leap-dash and tackled the door to break it apart.

Both of the women got so frightened that they screamed at the top of their lungs. So as soon as they rushed inside they immediately looked at the way the scream came from. Broken glasses on the floor, an open passage on the wall, and the princess is on all fours inside the passage looking back this way. He smiles, and it is the most horrible smile Sylvia has seen in her entire life. He dashes to catch her and after seeing so Sylvia tries to get further inside the passage but the hunter is faster than her. He catches her right leg and starts to pull her out. She screams both in fear and pain. He grabbed her leg so tight that it almost cracked. Suddenly she sees a small bottle filled with some liquid substance with a greenish hue fly by her sight towards the hunter. The bottle hits the hunter's right elbow bone and breaks with a loud sound. All the liquid inside spreads on his elbow and as soon as that happens his grip on Sylvia's leg loosens and he screams aloud in extreme pain. She notices his muscles started to melt and she can even see his elbow bone clearly. Just then she hears Belle's voice from further inside the passage, "My lady! Here, smash this near the passage opening. It will block the passage." Saying so she throws a gray stone at her. Sylvia catches it and turns to smash it and sees the brute hunter gritting his teeth in an attempt to ignore the pain and lunging at her again, trying to grab her leg again with his melting hand no less. Just as he touched her leg again, she smashed the stone on the passage right under his elbow. The stone created a small blast of glowing light and hardened substances similar to the rock she just smashed started to cover the passage opening at a rapid pace. The hunter's danger sense tingles and he tries to pull his hand out but he is not fast enough. The spreading substance cuts right through his elbow and closes the passage leaving the hunter on the other side and his right hand inside. Even from behind the thick wall that had just been erected, she could hear the scream of the hunter.

As she realizes the immediate danger has passed she exhales a sigh of relief. She just realized how much she was sweating. She hears Belle again, "My lady, let's move. That thing will hold them for now but not for long. A hunter can break that wall apart with some effort."

- Yes, let's go, Belle. I am grateful for your help just now.

- Please don't embarrass me, my lady. This is my duty. Come now. Follow me closely.

Village Kimura, two royal hunters having a smoke by the river bank.

- Are you sure about this? I'm nervous.

- Why so? Do you think anyone will notice? He's already dead so what does it matter if we just bury him here rather than throwing his body into the forest?

- But sir Sobin ordered us to do anything that quack Yordan says.

- That little snake bastard has already left for the Capital. Just relax. Or do you want to go inside the forest with this body now? He even told us to drop him near the Jade Vulture's nest. If anything goes wrong we will be ripped to shreds. Is it worth it just to dump a dead body?

- You are right but still, I just have an ominous feeling about this entire situation.

- Don't worry so much kid. The capital must be in chaos by now. Be thankful that you are away from all that. Here, take this stick and give it a deep suck. You will feel light in the head. Come on try it.

Just as he was passing the stick to his junior hunter mate, he felt something really sharp and pointy touch the right side of his neck. A hand grabbed his hair and pulled it back slightly. The other hunter's eyes got bigger in surprise. Then he hears a voice from behind, "Who is behind this rebellion?"

The ice-cold voice gave both of them goosebumps. They both are familiar with this voice. They have heard this voice countless times while training. Argos is feeling weak. His entire body is burning hot and every joint in his body is aching violently. The poison is still rampaging inside his body. He lost a lot of blood too because of the stab wound. He's still struggling to stand straight but even just his standing figure is so intimidating for this hunter duo that they are not even able to move an inch. They both know Argos's skills. As long as he is alive, he can kill almost any hunter in the entire kingdom.

- "S...Sir, Argos. We... are just, just following orders sir. This... we, got our orders from... from sir Sobin.

Hearing Sobin's name, his anger crossed the limit. He unconsciously let the hunter go from his grasp. But he didn't dare make a move on him. Argos never liked Sobin. He always looks like he is plotting something. But to do it for real, the King... he felt helpless. He must get back to the capital as soon as possible.

- Sir, please let us go. We didn't do anything bad nor did we harm anyone. We were just following orders, sir.

Seeing his mate begging for his life the other hunter also joined, "Yes sir, most of the hunters have already joined sir Sobin's cause. If we went against them, we would have been killed."

But Argos's eyes are cold. He may look like he might fall over at any time, but he spoke in a firm voice, "Before accepting your royal hunter sigil, you took an oath. You will protect the kingdom against all odds and even sacrifice your life if needed to protect the kingdom and its people. Today, you didn't even stand up against the rebels and were doing their bidding. Now you want forgiveness? Everyone has to take responsibility for their actions. As the king's sword, I now will execute both of you in offense of abandoning the kingdom in a dire situation and joining rebel forces who conspired against the kingdom and the royal family."

Hearing so they both understood, it was of no use to ask for forgiveness. He will kill both of them here. But they can't just stand still to die. They both unsheathed their sword. But before they can even move, both of their head just rolled over on the ground. All they could see before they died was that Argos's eyes and feet lit up in red flames.

Argos couldn't stay standing and fell on the muddy ground. He whistled loudly and started to crawl forward. All that's hovering in his head is that he must reach the king at once. But his body is giving up. He heard faint footsteps and saw Drake's feet in front of his face. But soon passed out again. All he managed to say was, "Take me to the King... Drake..."

The capital. After crawling for a long way Belle finally reached the end of the passage. It was dark so her head got hit by the wall that was covering the other end of the passage. She started searching for the keyhole by running her hand all over the panel and finally, her finger touched the hole. She put the stone key in and turned. The panel moved and the passage opened. But the mirror is already broken, and five hunters standing right before them.

One of them spoke in a cold voice, "Welcome, troublemakers. Unfortunately for you, this is the end of the line for you damsels." He signals to a hunter standing behind him. He comes and grabs their hair and pulls them out from the passage. Sylvia screams in pain. He binds their hand behind their back with a purple-colored tree twine. The strongest rope in the world. After binding them the hunter in the front stands in front of them and says, "Now, dear princess, let's go see your parents." He has a very disgusting smile on his face.