The second female lead Dual Cultivates

"Don't talk about things you have no idea about. I cannot stand it when you all talk like you know me" the princess whispered as she stood over the unconscious body with a hard expression on her face. Her eyes held a ferocity Maria had seldomly seen in seasoned war veterans and she did not envy the guard.

But she was very much the princess who looked to be in quite a foul mood now. She had not expected to be faced with such a problem when she had agreed to team up with the mild princess.

Actually, Maria had never even thought the gentle princess to be capable of knocking out a guard so brutally and with her bare hands as well. It was borderline attractive but also scary. Luckily for the princess, Maria had seen worse before so she was not afraid.

"That was not in the plan. I think he's bleeding as well" Maria commented as she closed in on the pair. She had been ready to take the guard out but there seemed to be no longer a need for her to interfere. The precautions they had taken just went to waste with a single move from the princess.

"I'm not sorry. This place just got to me" the princess explained and Maria was sure she made sense in her head. But the words just served to confuse Maria even more. What did the place have to do with being sorry? Those things did not connect inside Maria's mind.

But it did not matter in the end since they had achieved what they had wanted to. The guard had hopefully led them to the door where Karemori was being kept. And this door was the last obstacle in their way.

"Do you think this door has a trap laid on it? As a last defensive step?" Maria asked, not daring to touch the door. The guard had made explicitly sure never to touch the door even when he arrived in this corridor and walk a straight path ahead.

It almost seems like he had been afraid to touch anything here in case it turned out to be dangerous. And Maria found herself unconsciously mimicking the notion of the guard. Her instincts were yelling at her not to make a move in her haste.

"Maybe it's because my mother was such a peculiar person, or maybe it was because her family was cursed, but she liked to collect weird stuff. Weird magic stuff that was cursed. Sometimes, the curse just bled out of the object and into the walls and it started one too many rumors'' ah, now that Maria could understand. It also explained the poking feeling she got from some of the objects.

The magic she had been feeling was actually cursed. But it was all weak and harmless to her. It would have worked on weak people though and made for one hell of a security system. A weak person might not have noted but Maria could see the care being put into selecting some of these objects.

They all complemented each other in some way.

"What happened? Aren't you going to open the door?" Maria asked as she watched the princess hesitate in front of the door. She had expected the princess to take this chance and knock the door down as soon as they reached here but the princess had frozen in front of the door with a silent expression.

Maria tried to guess what it was that the princess was thinking but she could not figure it out. But it must be important enough for the princess to pause like this. She had been the one in the most hurry after all.

"I feel like there should be something I need to do before entering the room but I can't remember what it was. It's just been so long since I've last been here that I can't even remember this place for what it was" the princess sounded sad and heartbroken. It made Maria feel awful for her.

What if, one day Maria went back to her home but forgot how to even open her own bedroom door? What would she do then? Break the door down? But it held too many memories for her. With her mother and with Nao.

"We have no other choice but to open the door. We'll worry about the consequences later" Maria assured as she pushed the door open. The princess did not look like she was going to do it anyway.

And magic slammed into Maria with an impact she had not expected. It felt familiar and it pushed her back with a vengeance. It probed around her to look for something she did not have and it hurt as the magic invaded her.

"Don't hurt her. She's with me" and just like that, the magic received from around her. The harsh force disappeared and the barrier Maria had been leaning against disappeared as well But the echo of a distant voice remained inside her head and nothing could force it out.

It had to have been the node. Nothing else had quite such a strong presence. But why? And how? The more Marai thought about it the more it did not make sense to her.

"I'm sorry. Now I remember. I need to suppress my magic before I enter. When I was younger, Kagemori and my mother used to do it for me so that I wouldn't accidentally open a door and walk in there. It's the curse of the palace" Maria felt sweat drip down her face at the news.

"So, any door here can lead to that place?" Maria asked as she tried to catch her breath. What a nightmare this royal palace was going out to be. Who builds a royal castle on top of a node anyway?

"Well yes, but also no. Usually, the power to connect to that place is hereditary. The day I got it my father lost his. So everyone else should be safe. I don't know why it opened for you" the princess sounded genuinely confused at the notion but Maria was not.

She looked down at her system screen that had a text.

[Node connection successfully established. Kindly get the key needed to enter]

Well, fuck her system as well. Maria was not going to back down now. But she also did not have enough time to take care of the node. She needed to prioritize saving this country from collapse first.

"I don't know what's going on here. Wrap this around your wrist and let's save Kagemori" Maria passed a small part of her chain toward Trisha who took it with hesitation. And as soon as it was pressed down on her skin, Maria felt her magic being damped.