Upon seeing that the tripod religiously followed Harper no matter where she went, the chief guard of the Secret Pavilion was deliriously heartbroken. She had put great effort in every object of the pavilion. But now, that useless tripod totally ignored her and stuck with Harper and even followed her everywhere. There was nothing the guard could do to stop it from acting like that.
"Harper Chu, what did you do to it? Did you use some kind of spell?" the guard asked in anger. She was so exasperated that her voice turned more serious. As the chief guard of the pavilion, she should not leave the premises. But it seemed like the object had thought of Harper as its master and went away with her. Therefore, the guard had no other choice but to leave the pavilion and chase after it.
Harper responded, "A spell? I can only hope that I mastered that skill. But if you're serious in asking that, I didn't do anything to it. Come on. You can't blame me just because I entered the Secret Pavilion earlier. And, I didn't ask it to follow me. It just went out by itself and follows me wherever I go. You saw what happened. Why would you even question me?"
"But it's impossible for an inanimate object to—" The guard tried to protest but Harper cut her off.
"I wouldn't say that. Even an inanimate object can have intelligence. Believe it or not, I really didn't use any tricks. I swear it. I don't know what's going on with it either."
But no matter what Harper said, the guard didn't trust her words. Seeing Harper's serious expression, she didn't believe the princess would lie. But still, she was at a loss about how to deal with this tricky situation. Left without any other option, she decided to follow Harper wherever she went in order to find the right opportunity to take the tripod back.
Meanwhile, Francis who had been seriously injured had just escaped from the imperial capital. He met up with Diana who came to pick up Hoffman. But she had not expected to see Francis instead of Hoffman.
"Where's Hoffman?" Diana asked.
In a sluggish tone, Francis responded, "He's dead. He was killed when the battle broke out in the Imperial Palace. It was such a mess, and you should've seen it."
Upon hearing that, Diana frowned and refused to believe him at first. But when she thought about it more thoroughly, she didn't think Francis would lie to her. After all, he didn't have any reason to do so, especially for such an important matter like that. "Well, now that Hoffman is dead, there's no need for me to stay here anymore," Diana nonchalantly stated and was immediately about to leave when Francis spoke once more.
"Princess Diana, hold on. Although Hoffman is dead, the deal is not over yet." Although Francis' wound had been properly treated, his wound was still inflamed. The main reason was that he had run for such a long time in order to escape. Aside from that, the country was experiencing such a very humid and hot climate. Over all, he wasn't in a very good condition.
Hearing Francis' words, Diana immediately understood what Francis truly wanted. She just smiled at him and asked, "Do you mean to say that you want to be my ally in Hoffman's place?"
"Why not? I'm sure you're well aware that a partnership with me is more advantageous than that with Hoffman. Besides, he had been a useless man since a long time ago. I had removed all of his men in the south domain. Are you sure you don't want to be allies with me?" Francis asked. Even though he was having a fever, he would never show any weakness.
After thinking about his words carefully, Diana figured out something by reading along the lines. "What do you mean by that? Are there members of the south domain's army that are yours?"
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