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chapter 9
Natalie frowned and ran out onto the balcony to assess the situation outside.
“What are those?”
Leaning out and scanning the roof, she blinked.
Grotesque monsters with wings nearly two meters wide, their bodies like featherless bats, were flapping around and spewing fireballs onto the roof.
The knights and servants on the first floor, who had been desperately fighting off the monsters, began to panic and scatter.
Those weren’t supposed to appear.
In her dream—and during the original version of the game—spider monsters and serpent monsters had appeared. They were mid- and high-level fire-attribute creatures.
But the ones on the roof now were top-tier fire monsters.
And a rare species that hasn’t even been recorded by scholars yet.
If her memory was correct, those bat-like creatures wouldn’t even be discovered until next year.
Natalie furrowed her brows.
There should be high-level serpent monsters instead. Did the difficulty increase in the full version?
So far, events had been similar to the original version, but since the full version wasn’t exactly the same in difficulty, it made sense that something could change.
Screeeech!
Rumble—
An ominous sound echoed.
The beautifully painted bluish-gray roof was glowing red-hot, burning under the intense heat.
“Protect the mansion!”
“Everyone, evacuate!”
Only then did the knights and servants come to their senses, shouting as they ran about in chaos.
At that moment, the massive black front gates swung open, and two white horses came charging in from the distance.
“It’s the Duke!”
“The head of the family!”
Excited voices erupted everywhere.
The Duke of Ailsden and the young duke galloped forward, drawing their swords and summoning their aura.
Hummm!
A dazzling, noble white light gathered along their blades, swelling before shooting toward the monsters in an instant.
Slash!
Screeeech!
The crescent-shaped aura struck the bat monsters.
But although the creatures staggered from the impact, they didn’t die—instead, they grew more enraged and spewed even more flames.
Light and fire attributes shared a fundamental similarity, making it difficult for them to deal fatal damage to each other. Both relied on heat to attack.
Of course, if one side’s power overwhelmingly surpassed the other, it could destroy it.
That was why lower and mid-level monsters were easy for the duke and his son to handle—but higher-level ones became troublesome when there were many of them.
Even in her dream, her family had struggled against high-level monsters—so against top-tier ones, it was even worse.
At this point, brute physical force was the better option.
But since all the bat monsters were perched on the roof, that wasn’t easy either.
Hummm!
The duke and his son launched aura attacks relentlessly, without pause.
And Natalie, the only one who knew the real solution, calmly observed.
It won’t work.
Sure enough, the more battered the top-tier bat monsters became, the more violently they rampaged.
In the blink of an eye, they set the entire roof ablaze.
“T-the Duke’s aura isn’t working?!”
“My lord! The young ladies are still inside!”
Someone shouted in shock.
At that moment, the duke and his son abruptly stopped their attacks.
And surprisingly, Natalie found herself locking eyes with them.
Flap!
One of the bat monsters circling in the air suddenly clung to the wall with its claws.
Then it flipped upside down and began crawling downward.
Unluckily, Natalie’s room—on the top floor—was directly in its path.
In an instant, the top-tier monster reached her balcony, roaring in excitement at finding easy prey.
Screeeech!
Perhaps because it was her first time facing a monster in this body, her hair stood on end and her body trembled.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
Being targeted as prey by a top-tier monster—definitely not!
Suppressing her disgust at its saliva splattering everywhere, Natalie quickly regained her composure and tried to retreat into her burning room.
But the bat monster screeched mockingly and stretched out its demonic claw.
Whoosh—
“Ugh!”
Unluckily, her clothes were caught in its grotesque black talons.
Muttering a curse, Natalie grabbed a decorative curtain pin as she was being dragged.
Stab!
She drove the sharp tip into the monster’s claw with all her strength.
Got—
Screeech—
But the tough hide of the top-tier monster simply deflected the pin.
Enraged, the creature tightened its grip around her waist.
“Gasp!”
The crushing pressure knocked the breath out of her—
Thud!
Screeeech!
“…Huh?”
Suddenly, the suffocating pressure vanished.
Catching her breath, she opened her eyes to see a powerful, refreshing stream of water wrapping around the thrashing monster and sweeping it off the balcony.
Water!
Natalie’s face lit up as she rushed to the balcony.
And what she saw—
Whoosh—
Crash!
Screeeech!
—was a spectacular sight of dozens of towering water pillars.
“H-how is that possible?!”
“The power of water… the one said to be most favored by the Water God in history…”
The knights murmured in shock and awe.
The swarming spider monsters were instantly impaled and killed by water pillars erupting from underground.
The top-tier bat monsters, which had been spewing blue flames and burning the roof, were caught in massive, tornado-like columns of water and forced down.
Boom! Screech!
They slammed into the ground hard enough to crack it.
They struggled, spewing flames, but the layers of water binding their limbs and suffocating them gradually weakened them.
Screeeech!
The hellish battlefield was overturned in an instant.
Cheering, people rushed toward the writhing monsters.
Boom! Crash!
Every bat monster clinging to the roof was dragged down—none were spared, not even those hiding behind it.
Fatally injured by the relentless torrents, they lost strength and were finished off by the knights.
Smiling, Natalie waved toward the man at the center of the battlefield.
Riding a black horse, Roger Crawford met her gaze with a languid, indifferent expression, water surging around him.
He looks like a well-fed predator.
A proud, feline kind of predator.
He clearly looked satisfied, having freely unleashed his overwhelming power.
“Should I just take him to a fire-monster habitat…”
She muttered half-jokingly, seeing how refreshed he looked.
Rumble—
Natalie instinctively looked up.
Her ceiling—closest to the roof—had turned from red to almost white-hot.
And with the intensifying tremors, ominous sounds, and falling ash—
It’s collapsing!
She quickly grabbed the railing. Outside, people had noticed too, and chaos erupted.
“The roof is collapsing!”
“My lord! The young ladies are still inside!”
Someone shouted.
At that moment, a piercing scream came from the west wing—directly opposite Natalie’s room.
“F-Father! Brother!”
Sharon was clinging to her balcony just like Natalie.
The difference was that Natalie remained calm, while Sharon was pale and in tears, already panicking.
Both their rooms were on the verge of collapsing.
“….”
Natalie saw her family’s faces harden.
The duke and Anatole, who had been finishing off the monsters, exchanged glances.
But it wasn’t a discussion—just an instinctive acknowledgment.
Almost simultaneously, they shot forward like arrows.
The duke toward Natalie.
Anatole toward Sharon.
Rumble—
The ceiling of Natalie’s room began to collapse.
Neigh!
The duke’s white horse drew closer—and alongside it, though starting later but matching speed, the black horse approached as well.
Natalie narrowed her eyes.
Roger Crawford tilted his head slightly, his expression completely businesslike.
“Natalie!”
Her father, the Duke of Ailsden, called out sternly.
Even in a moment like this, he’s strict.
Thinking that without emotion, Natalie climbed over the railing.
And at the exact moment the white and black horses came to a stop—
She jumped without hesitation.
“Hey—!”
Behind her, the ceiling collapsed with a crash.
As onlookers gasped and screamed, Natalie plummeted downward.
Her white nightgown and golden hair whipped violently in the wind as she fell fast—
Splash!
—toward a surge of water below.
A spiraling column of water shot up and caught her mid-fall.
Unlike when it attacked the monsters, the water was gentle, wrapping her softly and lowering her safely onto the black horse without a single injury.
“Cough, cough.”
She coughed from the splashing water droplets.
Roger, holding her lightly, evaluated her with an indifferent face.
“You’ve got quite the nerve.”
“A little? I’ve imagined jumping off a railing a few times, actually.”
“That’s unexpected.”
“It seemed refreshing. And now that I’ve tried it—it’s thrilling.”
Whispering playfully, Natalie brushed her damp golden hair behind her ear and smiled brightly.
