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2.89% Eve's Gambit / Chapter 11: A Good Life

Chapter 11: A Good Life

When Eve and the others arrived back to their room, they could already hear a distant rumble of thunder. At first, it was barely audible yet everyone in the room knew that a storm was coming.

Dark clouds soon rolled in swiftly, obscuring the moonlight that cast shadows inside the room.

Soon, maids arrived to help them prepare for bedtime.

Not long after, they lay in their beds, the scene from earlier still haunting them.

Eve fell asleep while thinking about those women's fate.

However, her sleep came to an end as the storm started roaring to life. Lightning illuminated the room.

Her eyes fluttered open. Slowly, she sat up in her bed and stared at the dark room that would be occasionally lit by the burst of lightning outside.

She could hear the rain lashing out against the windows, creating what seemed like a symphony of tapping and splattering sounds that echoed through the room.

The wind howled outside, rattling the windows.

A feeling of unease enveloped her and it was not because of the storm.

For some unknown reason, she felt like someone was watching her.

She looked around. Everyone in the room is already sleeping, tired, and spent from the day's events.

*BOOM*

A clap of thunder echoed just as a chill ran down her spine. The shadow cast by the flickering lightning seemed to dance and play tricks on her head.

Still, Eve could not seem to shake off the feeling that she was being watched.

Eve's senses heightened, her heart beating faster with each clap of thunder.

She cautiously got out of bed, her bare foot touching the cold stone floor. She moved towards the windows as if she was drawn by the chaos outside.

With each flash of lightning, she scanned the dark courtyard, looking for any signs of movement, for any signs of life.

The room's windows were deliberately positioned to obscure any view of the castle's layout from the inside.

The view from the top revealed a courtyard in disarray, its once-manicured grounds now overgrown with weeds and littered with debris. The rain poured down relentlessly, forming puddles that reflected the occasional flash of lightning.

Clearly, no one was maintaining it.

A sudden flash of lightning revealed something in the corner of her eyes. She turned quickly but there was nothing there.

Was she hallucinating?

Frowning, she turned her attention outside and that was when she saw him.

A figure, standing in the shadows, partially obscured by the downpour.

Her heart skipped a beat, her mind racing with curiosity.

She could vaguely make out a man's frame as he stood outside, his head slightly lifted to welcome the rain.

As if feeling her gaze, the man turned towards her.

It was him.

The Prince.

She could clearly see his familiar features from where she was standing.

What was he doing outside?

Eve could not see the man's eyes because of the darkness but she could feel his gaze towards her. Just like how she was observing him, he too was observing her.

He stood perfectly still under the rain, staring at her. Despite this, she could not sense the feeling of danger in his gaze. If anything, all she could sense was curiosity.

What was he doing?

First, he told her how she owed him.

Now, he was standing outside of her window just staring at her without saying a word.

A part of her was curious about his intentions, the other part was wary.

He knew that she was a sorceress yet he did not kill her. Why?

"Eve?"

Eve flinched when she heard Willow's voice.

She turned.

"What are you doing?"

"I—" When Eve looked outside, the Prince was no longer there. "I was looking at the rain."

"Do you miss home?" She stood next to her and peeked outside.

Home?

Eve snorted inwardly.

"What about you?" Eve asked, ignoring the latter's question.

"I no longer have one."

"Why?"

"My sister was taken by the soldiers so they could sell her to become some baron's maid. She was my home." Willow blinked as if she was trying to stop herself from crying.

Eve lifted an eyebrow.

She had waged war against the Kingdom who supported the Demons. She knew that war could tear families apart.

In her defense, she did it to save humanity.

"Night's Courtship is nothing more than a game of survival," Eve said. "If you want to live you would not have come here."

Willow shrugged. "Outside of these walls were unimaginable things that a noble like you would not know."

"Tell me about it," Eve responded almost immediately.

"The dwarves hated humans and the Weres do not exactly respect us. It was only the vampires who welcomed us."

"Because of our blood," Eve said.

Willow nodded. "It's not like it is going to kill us."

"Is it not?"

"Well— it is better than what is outside of these walls. If one of the noble vampires took a fancy to us, we would have a chance at life. Isn't it just blood? We could live in luxury with maids and safe from the horrors of the world outside. What is blood compared to a good life?"

Good life?

If she is calling that a good life then…

Eve looked outside.

Indeed, life is cruel and brute.

"You should sleep, you already attracted the attention of Casimir. The others would start eying you thinking you already have an edge, an advantage. In this game, tall trees always attract the wind."

With that, Willow turned back to her bed. She laid down and pulled her blanket to cover her body.

Eve turned her attention outside of the window. The storm was still raging. The chaos outside perfectly mimicked the emotions she was currently feeling.

Another loud thunder boomed.

She blinked and looked in the direction of the door.

Something is telling her that something… or something is standing there.

Frowning, Eve took a step towards it. Going out of this room was not allowed without the mistress's approval. However, they intentionally did not lock the door to see if the women would follow the rules.

This means that anyone outside could simply walk in without difficulty.

The rules of this game were excessively brutal and biased, causing her to question whether the goal was to eliminate all women instead. Are they just looking for entertainment?

Or were they genuinely seeking a bride for their Prince?

Without hesitation, she opened the door.

Her eyes fell upon a vampire, tightly embracing a woman's body while satisfying its hunger.


Chapter 12: Sunlight

"What you did was very dangerous!" Ophelia scolded Eve the moment she walked inside the woman's study. "Didn't I tell you never to wander outside of the room?"

"I did not," Eve calmly said. The rules only said that she could not wander outside of the room. It never said anything about opening the door and immediately closing it after seeing a vampire.

"You—"

In fact, the reason why she did not receive any punishment aside from cleaning the room on her own was that she never really broke any rules that were included in their long list of rules.

"If you're set on dying, don't implicate the other women who came here hoping to be victorious in the courtship."

"Trinity just died," Eve said. "I saw a vampire draining her outside of the room." The woman that she saw that night was none other than Trinity.

"That was unfortunate. However, she was claimed by a vampire during the banquet. She was that vampire's property. Neither the Prince nor the laws of the vampires can hold him responsible for Trinity's accidental passing."

"Accidental passing…" Eve snorted.

"Are you that determined to end your life?" Ophelia asked. "The rules are absolute. Since another vampire has taken a fancy—"

"Is there anything else?" Eve rudely cut her off. She really had no patience for something like this. "I have a room to clean."

Ophelia was visibly shocked by the way Eve was behaving. She stared at her wide-eyed without saying a single word.

"A vampire's bride must be elegant. Poise and—"

"The one who will win the Courtship will become the vampire's bride." Eve cut her off. What poise? What elegance? Those were something that the vampires wanted to see! Seeing a woman struggling to maintain their composure would boost their ego!

Again, Ophelia was silenced by her words. For a moment, they stared at each other. Both of them knew that Eve's words were accurate. The one who would win the Courtship would become the vampire's bride.

"You may go now."

Eve rose from her seat. Then she turned towards the door.

"Please do not wander around," Ophelia said. "The reason why you survived was that the vampire was a noble and they were not allowed inside the room."

Eve turned towards her before she nodded and left the room.

"What did she say?" Willow and the others were quick to surround her when she arrived in the room.

"I was tasked to clean the room for a week," Eve said. That implied that she would need to remain here while they conduct their classes on rules and related subjects.

To be honest, she would prefer to stay in this room for a week than join them.

She was not in the mood to be in the presence of other vampires.

Moreover, she had yet to assess her current body.

If she wanted to live in this place, she needed to become stronger. That meant that she would need to learn sorcery. This body was quite weak, but that was considered normal to humans. What she currently needed was time— time to work on herself.

A week was not that long, but it would suffice.

She could let this body learn more spells to safeguard herself without adverse physical reactions like fainting or vomiting blood.

"What about Trinity?" one of the women asked.

Right now, there were only a total of seven women in the room. There were originally nine, but two women were already taken.

It had not even been a week since this had started, and two of them have already disappeared.

This was the reality of the Night Courtship.

"She was taken out this morning," Eve said. "The Mistress said it was unfortunate."

Another silence enveloped the room. However, it was soon interrupted when the maids arrived to prepare the women for today's lessons.

Since Eve was tasked to clean the room, she would not be joining any lessons and thus, no maids came to help her. After a few minutes, all of them except Eve left the room. Then another maid appeared to hand her the cleaning supplies that she would need.

Seeing this, Eve sighed.

She wished to leave the room, but it might take a few more weeks.

Night Courtship would last for a hundred days. The first few weeks were considered the boring weeks where each woman would learn all about the vampires.

There will be a lot of tests until they reach the 30th day where the women would be subjected to physical training. They would learn how to fight to 'protect' a vampire. Since there was a possibility that they would become a vampire in the future, they would be learning various things like their weak spots, killing a spawn, and many others.

Eve had read everything about this in one of the books in Lucius's library in the past.

She thought it was very interesting.

Now that she had somehow become a part of it, all she could feel was resentment for the vampires who did this to them.

"It was unwise of you to do that."

Eve flinched. She immediately turned. Her eyes widened when she saw Prince Maximilian standing by the door.

Almost immediately, she raised the mop in her hand.

"You—"

"Is there a need to pretend?" He lifted an eyebrow. "We both know something like that could not hurt me. How about utilizing that little fireball you used to threaten me when we first met?"

He was making fun of her.

"Why— Why are you here? A vampire—" There were windows in this room, and while sunlight does not exactly kill a vampire, it should make them very uncomfortable. However, the man standing before her was not showing any signs of discomfort.

Eve felt her heart sink.

He could speak inside her head and now he was standing in front of her in a room full of sunlight.

She still had doubts in the hall but now she was convinced that this man is more powerful than any other vampire she has encountered.

He was stronger than Duke Lucius.


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