"ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
Space seemed to warp and twist, then distorted before gradually returning to its original state before Janeus's eyes.
Stab!
Janeus drove her blade into the psychopath's neck then pulled it out in a swift, clean motion. She uttered no words before stabbing further into the limbs of the individual before her.
She retracted her sword and used a handkerchief to wipe away the blood clinging to the blade.
She looked at the room drenched in the foul stench of blood with a terrifyingly calm composure, as if beauty and horror could perfectly blend into the flower named Janeus Palecol.
As a princess, Janeus had long since prepared herself for things like this.
Unlike in television dramas or cartoons that often portrayed princesses as graceful ladies resembling flowers waiting for a prince to pluck them, whose only hardships in life might be being kidnapped by monsters or dragons and waiting to be rescued.
In reality, everything was ten thousand times harsher. No one knew how a princess might die. It could be at the hands of the populace who would kill her and impale her body on a stake, or being locked away by someone to endure extreme torture, or accidentally getting lost in some bizarre forest inside someone's conspiracy.
Politics, society, the populace, religion, economy... everything possessed a certain faction that wished to kill her, ranging from nobles who despised the royal family to revolutionaries smoldering with the desire to overthrow the regime.
The royal family might not be the smartest or the strongest people, but they had to be the ones bearing the most responsibility. She was the same. Janeus clearly understood that although she received backing from the royal family on the surface, she had almost no way to intervene in the war for the throne, nor could she accumulate enough power to ensure the populace would leave her untouched.
Precisely because of that, in order to survive, she had to find every possible method, no matter how desperate it might be.
Janeus looked toward the window, her hand still holding a sword sharpened to the absolute limit, engraved with magnificent patterns.
She decisively executed a horizontal slash toward the empty void, and surprisingly, a line of blood erupted from the air, dyeing her blade red.
"GHGGHHGHGHGH"
Thud.
"Tsk!"
Janeus retracted her sword. She scanned the room once then went outside, her hand carrying a few paper documents neatly tucked inside a bag.
She locked the door then used her blade to slash a clean cut right through the lock mechanism, causing the room to be sealed and making it impossible to open normally from the outside.
Having finished her work here, she walked toward the corridor in the darkness to locate the surveillance room, essentially to look for information.
The corridor was empty, a stark and freezing white that seemed to ice over her state of mind. Despite that, her expression did not change in the slightest, as if she did not care about it at all.
She walked slowly along the slippery corridor, tracing each floor tile to search for the strangest points. Her every breath was as light as a passing breeze, showing no shift toward urgency, as if time itself had to wait for her.
Click~
She opened the door and entered deep into that cluttered room. She pulled out the instruction sheets for new employees from her bag regarding the operation of the machinery and followed them.
Despite possessing no formal qualifications, Janeus easily handled and operated the highly sophisticated and intricate magical items as if it were a daily routine.
In fact, within just three minutes, she forced that sophisticated machine to print out dozens of report sheets about yesterday, December 30, 2995. It did not seem as difficult as she thought. It was even similar to model kit games, where she only needed to look at the instructions while executing the task to perform flawlessly.
That comprehensive talent of hers was even regarded by Ron as the pinnacle of the younger generation, a royal genius born from the most primal pressures of survival.