Chapter 695: Intermission- The Nekomata’s Great Escape
Emilia was not having a good time.
She had not only learned that her family intended to dispose of her, they also intended to claim all of her hard work as her own.
Not only that, she had learned that she could not even trust the people around her whom she would have trusted her back with in a fight not a few days ago.
Someone else who was in her position might have even deemed her situation as hopeless, but Emilia was not someone who would give up that easily. Especially not when she still had so much money saved up that she intended to use.
There’s still so many Creas out there that she has to earn!
That’s why, after she discovered the plot against her by the ones that call themselves her parents, she set herself to work with a single minded purpose of giving them one farewell they would never forget.
She started writing letters to her associates, cashing in on favours and making more deals to ensure that her plan would go without a hitch.
Because she could not trust her own subordinates, she had to sneak out of the ship and rely on her underground connections instead.
While these people were by no means trustworthy, Emilia knew that their loyalties lie towards the highest bidder and she was willing to pay a lot for this job.
Unfortunately, her subordinates were retainers of her family which meant that they could not be bought and would only obey the words of the family head.
Right now, that worked in her favour as it set a distinction on who she could not trust which allowed her to make her plans accordingly.
Her plan was a simple one: get several explosives delivered using smugglers and disguise it as supplies to be distributed to various parts of the ship.
She would then give the order for the crew to take a day off the ship under the pretence of having the ship go through a security inspection using Crystal’s attempt on her life as the reasoning.
With most of the crew away from the ship, she would then gather the guards and subdue them before blowing up the ship after she had moved everyone away.
No, she was not sparing their lives because she was being merciful, it was because she knew that the crew here would experience a much harsher punishment by the family should they realise they failed to protect the ship from Emilia herself.
She knew first hand what kind of punishment that entailed and she wished the most painful of lives on these people that had chosen to betray her.
Meanwhile, she would have gathered up her savings and title deeds to make her escape and seek shelter in the Nilm Family.
Of course, she knew that even something like that would not be enough to protect her from future assassinations from her family but it would at least deter them for some time while she worked to regain the assets she would inevitably lose from this endeavour of hers.
She estimated that by the time her family figured out her location and planned an assassination on her, she would have already created her own information network that would inform her of such an attempt ahead of time and perhaps even cripple any attempts her family might make in the future.
Everything had gone smoothly for the first part and she managed to spread the explosives around the ship without tipping off the crew about her plans. At least, that was what she believed at that time.
On the day that she was supposed to get everyone but the guards off the ship, she had been making her final preparations for the plan in her office.
After setting the last barrel of explosives in the corner of her room that would trigger the chain reaction to blow up the rest of the ship, she went over to her hidden safe to start gathering her things as part of the final phase of her plan.
When she opened the safe however, something shot out from within that was aimed at her face.
It was only thanks to the fact that she was not standing directly in front of the safe that she managed to have enough time to avoid it, the projectile flying past her face and hitting the wall behind her.
She turned to see what was ejected out of the safe and realised it was a dagger.
When she looked back inside the safe, she found some kind of spring loaded mechanism that was designed to be activated to shoot the dagger out the moment the safe door was opened wide enough.
That was not the worst part as the Nekomata realised that aside from the mechanism, her safe was completely empty.
“No… No, no, no, no, no, no, noooooooooo!!!” Emilia screamed, closing and opening the safe door repeatedly hoping that her things would reappear inside the safe.
When that did not happen, she started groping around the safe, hoping that what she was seeing was simply an illusion or some kind of invisibility magic had been cast on her stash.
When it was apparent that everything had been taken, she realised that she had been fooled from the very start.
The knife was already proof enough that they were aware of her plans and never intended for her to leave.
As though confirming that thought, her door was opened and several of her guards entered the room, all of them armed to the teeth.
They were surprised to see her standing at the safe, then their eyes drifted to the knife embedded in the wall and they realised their trap had failed to kill their former captain.
Emilia turned to the group of traitors, her face scrunched up in rage.
“You bastards… Are you all prepared to die?” She asked, her hand reaching for the blade on her waist.
The guards themselves said nothing as they each drew their own weapons as well, all of them fully aware that they would be fighting someone that could cut them down before they even realised they had been cut.
But for them, it would be a greater dishonour to back down now, especially when they were tipped off about Emilia’s plans before this.
It turned out that one of the smugglers Emilia had got in touch with was in the pockets of her family. He was told ahead of time that he would be paid double the amount that Emilia offered if he informed the family of her plans.
Fortunately for Emilia, however, the smuggler was a greedy one and tried to get even more money out of the deal by demanding three times the amount after Emilia contacted him.
The smuggler ended up getting captured and had the information tortured out of him which caused the crew to be late in responding to the threat.
Emilia knew that someone must have given away the plan but she was sure that they would not be able to defuse all the bombs since she was the one who arranged them herself. So even if they knew about her plan to blow up the ship, they would not know where she planted them.
Now that she knew they had already seized her assets, she no longer had anything to lose.
In a flash, she dashed forward and cut down the two guards standing directly at the front.
The two guards did not even realise they were already dead and tried to turn their heads, only for it to be separated from their bodies.
The other guards immediately swarmed her, making use of their experience fighting alongside her to predict her movements and counter her attacks.
Emilia stabbed her sword into one of the guard’s throat, only for the guard to grab a hold of it even while he was dying.
She barely reacted to the attempt to slow her down as she slashed her sword out of his grasp and decapitated him, turning around in time to parry away several strikes aimed at her back.
Reversing her grip on her katana, she slashed her sword again and cut down three more guards that had tried to strike her from behind.
At first, it looked like she might actually be able to fight her way out of this unscathed, until even more guards started pouring in through the door and started to surround her.
It seemed like they were willing to literally throw their lives away just to try and kill her.
Feeling both rage and frustration boil up within her, Emilia remembered that everything she had owned was already gone and she had nothing else to lose.
As a final ‘fuck you’ to them, Emilia flipped herself away from the fight and tossed a charged Mana Stone at the barrel in the corner.
The guards belatedly realised what the barrel was for and scrambled towards it to try and mitigate the explosion.
Naturally, that was a futile attempt and the explosion blew up an entire portion of the room, setting almost the entire room on fire instantly.
The explosion had also blown Emilia away to crash into the wall, the heat burning parts of her exposed skin that she did not manage to protect in time.
She managed to hold on to her sword and used it to push herself up on her feet even as the remnants of the guards also stood back up.
Now that her plan to blow up the ship had succeeded, the guards also have nothing left to lose anymore.
Emilia smirked at the guards who were glaring at her, “Hurts, doesn’t it? Wanna kill me? Come try it…”
They charged and so did she, the sound of their blades clashing would echo inside the flaming room for a while more before a certain Meslatar arrived.
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