Volume 4, Chapter 44 – Pepe

“Hey, hey… now is not the time for chess, is it? If it were me, I would have been so anxious I wouldn’t know what to do.”

After a very simple dinner near the base, Edith, who had returned to the carriage, proposed a game of chess. Yisi couldn’t help but make the above remark.

Edith, who had recovered some of her strength, waved her hand and ordered Refina, who was sitting in the carriage, to bring over a small table.

“You are you, I am me. Being overly anxious will only make things worse. The current situation requires me to calmly sort things out.”

“No… you don’t look anxious at all.”

If it weren’t for the fact that it was the count’s eldest daughter, she would have said something as rude as, “You just want to play chess, don’t you?”

“Hurry up and set the pieces. I think I have the strength to defeat you now.”

“If you think playing chess now is not a problem.”

Shrugging, Yisi followed suit and set up the pieces on the board.

As before, Yisi let Edith have the first move. Edith advanced her pawns to A4 and D4, then moved her knight from B1 to C3. It was a completely different opening from before. In the past, Edith would always bring out her queen first, but today she had adopted a defensive posture.

As if sensing Yisi’s inner thoughts, Edith showed a slightly smug expression.

“These past two days, I have carefully considered the reasons for my previous failures and my bad moves, reflected on the problems, and finally came to the current conclusion—to deal with you, I should use a strategy of slowly nibbling away at your pieces.”

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You can reflect too?

Although she wanted to say that, Yisi changed her wording at the last minute.

“I’d rather you use this kind of thinking to deal with Hetty.”

While responding to Edith, Yisi no longer had the same composure as before. Edith’s chess skills had improved a lot. If she continued to treat her with a playful attitude, the only outcome would be defeat.

“Is that so.” Edith pouted noncommittally. “Perhaps so, but I will not borrow the strength of others. The goal in chess is victory, which is a different matter from reality, where one must choose their means.”

As she spoke, Edith moved her knight to a position where it could checkmate the king in two moves. Yisi prepared to capture it with her rook, but her hand stopped midway—if she captured Edith’s knight, a large gap would appear in her defense, and her rook would be captured by Edith’s bishop, which was guarding behind it.

It was already a very strategic move.

Without falling into Edith’s trap, Yisi chose to evade.

“I haven’t asked you all this time, the result of the assassination—I mean, what were the details?”

“As you can see, it failed.” Edith tapped the chessboard lightly with her index finger.

“The assassination was originally successful, but Hetty can parasitize people who have been planted with a spiritual seed. To be more specific, what I killed was merely a vessel. Even if I completely destroy the body, her consciousness can transfer to another vessel, making her impossible to kill completely.”

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“How can that be! Then isn’t there no way to reclaim your position?”

Refina, who had been watching the game silently from the side, looked at Edith with concern.

Edith glanced at her.

“Kill all the vessels—”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to kill everyone who has been planted with a seed?”

Her remark was interrupted by Yisi. Edith first frowned, captured Yisi’s over-advanced pawn, and then continued to explain.

“If I could, I wouldn’t mind getting rid of all those traitors.”

The subtext was that she couldn’t.

“As for the next plan, I will make my move in two days, when Father sets out on the northern expedition.”

“While Count Pescia is away, will you assassinate the Hetty who is left behind again?”

“I don’t think Hetty will stay in the mansion. Her goal is to weaken the strength of the Pescia territory. In order to prevent Father from choosing to cut his losses and retreat when his side is at a disadvantage, she will definitely stay by his side and incite him to fight to the death.”

“Wouldn’t the final result be the same as today?”

Rеаd оn KαtRеαⅾiոɡСαfе

Hetty had the ability to parasitize other people’s bodies. If she killed the Hetty outside, the spare vessel left in the mansion would be activated by Hetty again, and in the end, it would all be for nothing.

“No. The people who have been planted with a spiritual seed by Hetty are all the ‘incompetents’ I left in the mansion. They know neither magic nor combat, and they can’t even contribute to war strategy. Their physical strength would not support them to participate in an expedition like this. At a critical moment in the plan, Hetty will not add a burden to herself by bringing those pets along.

When Hetty changed bodies before, she mentioned that she had to reapply the mind magic on Father. Therefore, I believe that as long as I kill the Hetty outside, Father will break free from the mind control and listen to my words. Then, I will have him dispatch troops to encircle and annihilate the Hetty in the mansion. Of course, to prevent him from being mind-controlled again, I will have him wear an accessory that can sever the influence of mind magic.”

It sounded like a flawless plan, but the problem was, how could she break through the army and kill Hetty?

When Edith, Count Pescia, and Hetty were together, the Count would only believe Hetty’s words. If Edith led people to assassinate Hetty in two days, she would face not only Hetty and Count Pescia, but also thousands of Pescia territory soldiers. The guards of the mansion recognizing Edith didn’t mean that all the soldiers in the territory did. In the eyes of those soldiers, Edith was just an assassin who was trying to kill the Count’s daughter. The result was imaginable.

After Yisi voiced her thoughts, Edith was silent for a long time.

“There is no other way. We can only make a final attempt, using the assassins as cannon fodder to attract the army’s attention, and then break through from a weakly defended point.”

It was easier said than done. In reality, it was no different from suicide.

A muffled groan came from her throat. Yisi tapped the table impatiently with her knuckles.

Even if Edith was stubborn and unlovable, she still didn’t want to see her go to her death.

It was frustrating.

Edith continued to move her pieces.

Rеαⅾ oո KаtRеαdіոɡСаfе

“If I don’t stop Hetty, it will be too late when Father leads the army to the far north. The foundation that Father has built will be wiped out overnight, and it will be a question whether he can even come back alive. I can be indifferent to the lives of the soldiers, but I only have one father. Even if he doesn’t recognize me now, he is still my father.”

“…That doesn’t mean you have to be in such a hurry. Elden City is in the central part of the Pescia territory. It will take at least five days for the army to travel from Elden City to the far north. Pepe can have the assassins lie in ambush on the army’s path in advance and choose a terrain that is advantageous to her side.”

“Pepe?”

Edith raised an eyebrow. Refina also looked at Yisi, her eyes full of surprise.

Realizing that she had let it slip, Yisi gave a perfunctory, dry laugh.

“Ah-ha…ha… I’ve been calling you ‘you’ ‘you’ all this time, and it feels very rude. If I call you Edith directly, you see, my name is Yisi, right? The similar names would be a mouthful. So I was thinking if I could use a more special name, and it just slipped out, so I called you Pepe.” ¹ smh, chinese things… just understand it that the chinese pronunciation is similar, and yisi try to shorten it.

“If the person who said that wasn’t you, what would be standing in front of me now would be a corpse.”

Her face showed neither anger nor fury, as if nothing had happened. Edith moved her bishop, continuing to nibble away at Yisi’s pieces.

Yisi cautiously peeked at Edith’s face.

“So you agree?”

“I seem to still owe you a condition.”