Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

Chapter 258: Not worth answering (Etaria's PoV)

The cry of a celestial beast gave the signal for the barrage of bullets to begin. Yet, when the cry filled the air again, bullets weren't the only thing that stopped.

'What now?' Etaria thought, tightening her hands to the point her nails started to cut through the skin of her palms, digging directly into her flesh.

But rather than a new round of madness descending… only silence was daring enough to replace the stalled chaos from before.

The crowd of survivors of Salvador's army froze, terrified by the repeated scream to the point they could no longer muster the strength to push themselves through the sticky mud of the wetlands. Yet, as more and more of them realized that no further attacks had come from the forest, the momentary freeze of the situation quickly came to an end.

Or so it would, if not for a small group of merely four people walking out from between the trees.

"What the…"

Unable to hold her voice back, Etaria broke her facade and heavily hinted at the true scale of the inner turmoil the apocalyptic sights from before created.

The princess was shocked when she saw entire swaths of people cut, shattered into pieces by a hail of invisible projectiles. She bit her teeth down on her lips to the point of drawing blood when the invisible scythe carved bloody holes in the rank and file of Salvador's army.

But when a total of four people walked out from behind the trees, two of which Etaria instantly recognized, her face turned still.

'For real? Is she…? But wouldn't that…? If so, then why is she…? But if…?'

A thousand questions appeared in Etaria's mind, a new one forming before the last one could even fully formulate in her brain.

What she saw made no logical sense. It went against everything she took for granted in this already fucked up situation. But no matter her assumptions from before, Etaria wasn't of the kind to refuse reality when it was right before her eyes.

A total of four people walked out from behind the trees. The two of them that she recognized were the supreme of the forest that she talked with before and the very young man that her fellow supreme requested Etaria to meet with.

"My princess, is everything alright?" Salvador asked, clearly just following the court rules of fake courtesy rather than actually feeling concerned over the situation.

The fact that he didn't even bat an eye when hundreds of his men were falling prey to an invisible source of death proved as much.

For a moment, Etaria entertained the thought of lashing out at the man… Only to ultimately roll her eyes.

'He's not worth my anger.'

"Anyone who wasn't at Lunagar siege, leave."

Rather than addressing the joke of a lord directly or even sparring him a single glance, the princess simply included him within the group of people she no longer welcomed in her tent.

A group of people that consisted of just a single individual plus possibly some of his retainers.

"My princess…" Salvador's eyes opened up a tiny bit wider; his smile widened. "It's is my right as a duke of the realm…"

"It is your duty as the subject of the imperial crown to follow a direct order," Etaria spoke as she finally turned her head and gave the man an icy-cold stare. "Are you going to disobey an express order of your leader, superior, and princess, Duke Salvador?"

For a short while, Etaria clashed stares with the man, refusing to avert her stare.

"The imperial parliament…" Duke Salvador attempted to argue, even going as far as to raise his massive booty from his equally as massive chair.

"Zanba!"

Rather than wasting even a single word more on the man, Etaria turned to one of her officers standing guard by the side of her open tent.

"My princess!" Hearing his name, the officer turned around on his heel.

Normally, he would be supposed to fall on his knees, execute a complicated bow, and then respond with the full "To hear means to execute, my princess!".

Yet, as a man serving the golden princess for years, as someone who went through the hell of Lunagar siege by her side, shedding both the blood of her enemies and, in the process of doing so, his own, he didn't need to bother.

"Duke Salvador is tired. Escort him out of my sight. And if he continues to disobey an expressed command…"

Both the princess and the officer gave the duke a long, cold look. Yet, while the princess quickly averted her eyes and turned them back to the events down the hill and near the forest, the officer already raised his head and moved towards the duke.

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"Duke Salvador…" he muttered in a perfectly empty voice while his hand already hovered near the handle of the short sword attached to his side.

'Just what the hell is going over there?' Etaria thought, gritting her teeth as she erased the last thought about the duke from her mind, fully focusing on the ridiculous sight ahead.

For the massive, just recently chaotic crowd of Salvador's men… Has parted in half, opening a corridor several meters wide through which the group of four from the forest casually strolled ahead.

'I mean, they are smart enough not to attack a damn supreme… But still!'

Etaria took a deep breath, trying to calm her thoughts and approach the topic rationally.

'Even if they don't know that bitch is a supreme, they saw what the forest folk is capable of. It's pretty normal for them to be scared…'

From this point of view, the weird actions of Salvador's soldiers made sense, but…

But war was hardly a logical, sensible thing. For every iota of reason, there was a sea of emotion. For every strategist who relied on reason to make up plans, there were forty tacticians who mostly relied on their guts and experience to make the calls in the field. And for every tactician… There were nearly a hundred legionaries whose only task was to swing their weapons and follow orders.

This equation, though, only applied to formations like imperial legions. And while the ratios were slightly more favorable in elite units like Etaria's golden legion, just a single look down the slope and towards the forest was enough to confirm Salvador's troops were on the opposite end of the spectrum.

'Still, to so easily control that kind of mass of panicked people…' Etaria thought, taking a second to internalize all her thoughts and properly process them.

'No, what's important right now, is to find out what they want. What they want so much they are so brazen to go past several thousand men just to… to what, exactly?'

The invisible death from before has ceased. The survivors of Salvador's army parted into two groups, opening a huge corridor for the forest group to walk through uninterrupted. Said group was currently heading straight in the direction of Etaria's tent.

Those were the facts. Everything beyond was nothing more but Etaria's speculations.

"They really seem desperate to meet me," the princess muttered to herself.

Bit by bit, she removed all the guesses, assumptions, and other useless thoughts, focusing only on what she could tell for sure.

'Why is their supreme coming with them? Who are those two I didn't see before? And why…'

As if today didn't bother the princess with enough shocks for a single day, a new realization struck her as the group passed by the greater part of the crowd, got past the wetlands, and quickly made its way ahead.

'Why does that guy appear to be a mere mortal?' Etaria thought as her eyes focused on the male out of the two strangers. 'Does he not fear death? Or are they that confident nothing is going to happen?'

The more questions arose in Etaria's mind, the harder it became for her to make a proper call.

Still, the group continued to get closer and closer at a slow yet steady pace.

"Luma, Otto, Zhen, with me," Etaria finally came to terms with how she wasn't going to understand what the hell was going on unless she actually asked the people in question. "We are going to…"

"Get your filthy hands off me, you damn pleb!" Salvador's cry shook Etaria out of her focus, brutally pulling her back to the convoluted reality of what this war was behind the scenes.

"Sir Duke, I'm not going to ask again," Zanba warned, not showing any signs of annoyance with the duke's refusal to as little as to stand up from his chair.

"You have no authority to tell me what to do, you damn scum!" Duke Salvador continued to argue.

A foolish move, unfitting of a politician well enough to cause Etaria so many headaches in the past.

But then again, with fat drops of sweat falling down the man's forehead, the trembling of his hands, raspy voice, jiggling stomach…

Salvador wasn't exactly the best version of himself. And contrary to the debates in the imperial parliament, he didn't have the backing of all of his powerful supporters.

"That's enough," Etaria spoke coldly, no longer willing to put up with the duke's attitude. "You've repeatedly disobeyed an express command from your princess, superior, and commander."

Zanba's face tensed up a little, even though the princess didn't spare him even a single glance. The officer thus took a short breath and closed his eyes for a second…

Only to open them and reveal a look of cold, collected determination.

"For treason, death," he muttered, openly grasping at his short sword's handle.

"Wait, what trea…"

*Swish*

Zanba didn't answer the question. After all, by the time Duke's mouth turned still, his head had just stopped rolling down on the ground. And since Salvador never managed to finish his sentence...

The experienced officer found it redundant to bother with spelling out the answer.