Pillar of Yita

”There’s another room inside!” Wu Xiaopang’s sharp eyes suddenly caught something, and he pointed in one direction and shouted.

Earlier, Bain’s knights had come too quickly, and the room was too dark, not to mention a group of panicked maidservants distracting attention. They had entered and overlooked that there was another room inside.

Fang Hong looked at the tightly closed door and decisively said, ”Let’s go in first.”

No need for politeness, Luo Hao took the lead and kicked the door open. No one cared about the maidservants outside, and everyone rushed in, a woman’s scream came from the dark room. There’s someone inside? Fang Hong was startled, but immediately realized it wasn’t surprising; he looked up and found this seemed to be a small library, several towering bookshelves filled with various ancient books. At this moment, a skinny girl in a purple robe was hiding under a bookshelf, looking at them in fear.

But when Fang Hong saw her face, and the girl saw their faces, both were stunned, equally shocked expressions appearing on their faces.

”Mr. Ade?”

”Affia?”

...

”Stop,” Nulman ordered sharply from outside the room, ”Everyone fall back, immediately.”

The knights were bewildered by this contradictory command, but since it was His Excellency the Governor’s order, they had to comply, putting down their curved blades and silently retreating from the room. Someone asked softly, ”What about those maidservants?”

Nulman showed a helpless expression, rubbed his temple, glanced at his daughter beside him, and said wearily, ”Bring them out too.”

Although they didn’t know why those ’intruders’ didn’t harm anyone, maybe they didn’t have time, the maidservants were still quite frightened, each one looking lost. Lavali finally breathed a sigh of relief after seeing Lima, who was crying like a tearful mess, and quietly comforted her a bit.

But clearly, Nulman wasn’t ordering the knights to stop the attack just for these maidservants; he pampered his only precious daughter, but not to the point of disregarding everything for indulgence.

Seizing the moment while the knights brought people out, His Excellency the Governor turned around solemnly and asked Lady Rand beside him, ”Is Miss Affia really inside?”

Lady Rand’s face was paler than the thick powder on her face, she nodded gently.

”Who is Affia?” Lavali finally shifted her attention from Lima and asked softly, ”How did she end up in my room?”

”The mess you stirred up.”

Nulman gave his daughter a disgruntled glare.

But when he thought that if it weren’t for this, his daughter would be inside the room now, and things wouldn’t be any better for him. It might even be worse; these thoughts couldn’t be shared with outsiders, but having his daughter out of the room still made him breathe a sigh of relief.

But as he relaxed, the Arcanists had effectively exchanged positions with him, now as anxious as ants on a hot pan. The middle-aged Arcanist, with an urgent, pleading tone, kept chattering, ”My Lord Nulman, please make sure to get Miss Affia out safely. You know, if anything happens to her...”

Nulman, seeing the other’s state, felt a slight sense of satisfaction, even wanting to ask in return what their attitude was when it was his daughter inside. But the current situation couldn’t make him laugh; these people caused the issue, but being on his turf, he had to give His Majesty an account.

”So what are you going to do?” he asked in return.

The middle-aged Arcanist opened his mouth, then sighed, ”Your Excellency the Governor, you decide.”

Nulman nodded; he intended to shut these people up, avoiding their interference later.

He called over two knights and gave them instructions.

...

”Miss Affia, how are you here?”

”This, this is what I wanted to ask, Mr. Ade... how did you all escape?”

But obviously now wasn’t the time to catch up, Wu Xiaopang came over, with a mournful expression, said to Fang Hong, ”Boss, let’s not talk about this now. What should we do next? We’ve checked, this is just a storage room for books, there are no other passages.”

Fang Hong, knowing the urgency, cast his gaze to the floor, answered, ”We can only try to blow this open, head to the next floor, at least we don’t have to break out from outside.”

”Here?” Wu Xiaopang was startled, his voice rising sharply, ”But this is the center of the room; boss, your bomb is pretty powerful...”

”But there’s no choice,” Fang Hong replied as he took out the Fire Giant, ”the detonation point can’t be too close to the walls, as we don’t know which wall is load-bearing; we might accidentally bring the house down and get buried.”

He paused, ”We have to gamble.”

”Wait,” Affia stopped them, ”You can’t blow this place up.”

”Why not?”

”The books here are...”

Fang Hong reached out, pulled Affia over, placed her aside, and said with some apology, ”Please stand here; I’ll protect you in a moment. The books here may be valuable, but right now we can’t care about that. No matter how valuable books are, they can’t compare to the value of a life. Miss Affia, I hope you understand this.”