Date a Witch: Reborn as the Witch of Lust! (GL)-Chapter 83: Saintess’s Scheme and Nyrel’s Ego

"The Lich was disguised in a Royal Knight’s Armour."

The brown-haired elf tugged a lock of hair behind her ear, only for white to bleed through, streaking the strand like snowflakes.

Disguise unraveled like flower petals, and her hair returned to a snowy white, her elven ears rounding out as her features softened.

Mel glanced over the Saintess, now dressed in white pajamas. "That must have stained the King’s name a little."

"Oh. It is more than that." The Saintess chuckled.

Their golden eyes locked with each other, pajamas matching except in color of pink and white, as starlight faintly glimmered off their smiling faces.

Like a late-night girly talk, if not for the conversation.

A teasing thought streamed into Mel’s mind before she muttered. "Is it about the spies? Could using me as bait have helped you identify them?"

"Identifying them is never the issue, Mel."

The Saintess tapped her lips with an index finger, a slight grin hidden beneath it. "Nyrel was ever an arrogant yet distrustful familiar. Even the spies had explosive runes implanted, in case something went wrong."

"Damn." Mel leaned onto the rail of her chair, cheek sinking into the wood in an idle musing. "Then did you detect them using mana?"

Mel recalled how Samantha also patted her head to detect if any cult magic sprouted from within her. Could the Saintess do something similar?

As expected, the Saintess nodded, her eyes curving. "Something similar to that."

With a graceful twist of her wrist, the stars within the wall realigned.

Mel glanced up, her golden eyes trembling as constellations collided and reassembled, slowly forming a round shape.

Its skin was pale, bathed in the soft breath of moonlight seeping through the repurposed wall.

"As you can see, this summon and the other two summons outside are my domains."

The Saintess cupped her cheek as she crossed her thighs, smirking. "A couple of hours ago, not long after you entered the <Dream> realm, a small rebellion occurred in the other two <Memorial Whales>."

A flicker of surprise crossed Mel’s face, yet the Saintess’s calmness soothed Mel’s shock into nothing , as if the rebellions were but a minor inconvenience.

The Saintess continued with a relaxed voice. "Yet Nyrel couldn’t have known I was onboard myself, let alone capable of detecting all her <Dimension Runes> like Gluttony or her Master Pride."

Mel hummed, reconsidering Nyrel’s ability in the game.

As the inheritor of <Space> mastery from Pride, Nyrel had cleverly displaced her runes, anchoring them to individuals’ minds through other <Realms>.

The result? The <Runes> couldn’t be manually deactivated by any means.

But if someone can trace the runes’ links to their hosts, the spies reveal themselves immediately.

Mel further asked. "So prior to this, you already knew who and where every spy was?"

"After they were onboard, yes." The Saintess’s eyes curved. "All that’s left was careful arrangement of my own troops, and placing Saria in ours to sneakily watch over any spy from our Whale."

"But this place has been strangely quiet so far, hasn’t it?"

"That’s the point." The Saintess chortled.

"The other two whales’ little rebellion has been swiftly corrected by my Knights. Nyrel may have expected casualties to embarrass me, but alas, she couldn’t have known I already detected them onboard."

The Saintess continued with a soft smile. "Best of all, since my little cleanups in the Holy Knights, all the spies were confirmed Royal Knights, which allowed me to hold rights over them and their commanders. Very convenient."

Mel rubbed her cheek idly against the rail, recalling how eerily quiet the corridor had been earlier.

"It’s the opposite, Mel." A serious glint crossed the Saintess’s gaze. "Those two little rebellions were but a diversion."

"Diversion?"

"Yep. Diversion, or an attempt to give an illusion that the issue was resolved."

The Saintess raised a finger as if teaching. "Picture Nyrel, who didn’t expect I was onboard, knowing who and where every spy is, if sudden incidents occurred in the other two whales, what would have happened instead?"

Mel tilted her chin up, her pink hair spraying over the chair. "Hm... I’ll expect the Knights either cancel the trip outright, or keep them under wraps and continue it. Most likely the latter."

"Why?"

"Reputation." Mel frowned. "None of the parties’ reputation would be unharmed; it would have been an attack initiated by Royal Knight Spies, that the Holy Knights failed to detect, atop a Saintess’s summons."

"Exactly." The Saintess’s features grew tender, as if more proud of Mel’s analysis than the potential consequence happening. "Nyrel’s always more egotistical than perceptive, but she’s not completely senile."

Mel made a face at the Saintess’s mockery, before noticing a bloodlust surging in her expression as she spoke. "She knew clearly that with how Gluttony was onboard, the kidnapping would have been sensed."

The Saintess held up one finger.

"So she pursued two objectives, assuming her spies went undetected. First: to severely damage our reputations. Or at the very least, thoroughly humiliate us with spies’ rebellions."

Then the second finger.

"Second, to hide the fact that there were spies within this whale now, by distracting us with the aftermath of the rebellions, whether it is handling the casualties or cover-ups."

Mel’s eyes widened at the layered objectives, as if two chess masters were battling against one another.

Except, from the Saintess’s calm expression, this game had already been decided.

"Then," Mel’s voice grew a little heavier. "If I’m not mistaken, and assuming that kidnapping me is their final objective..."

A golden glow seeped from the Saintess’s skin, an unspoken rage simmering beneath her serene expression.

The Saintess stared at Mel, her teasing and eased tone subsided just as quickly as her golden mana. "You guessed correctly."

She took a deep breath. "After all, we’re still in the sky. There are artifacts to teleport you across Realms, but it is much more convenient to capture you while on the ground."

In other words, the spies in this whale were supposed to attack after Mel and the others landed.

By then, Nyrel assumed everyone would believe the danger had passed, making it the perfect time to strike.

All to capture poor old me.

Mel shuddered to herself, barely containing the excitement of being in a movie-like scenario.

R𝑒ad latest chapt𝒆rs at freew𝒆(b)novel.c(o)m Only