The Young Master in the Shadows

Chapter 53: Margret

Margret held a deep secret. When she was young her uncle whom she lived with after her parents died molested her. He later made her serve other men for money. But luckily for her, he was soon arrested and she was saved. But even after she moved out to live with her aunt, old nightmares still haunted her when she slept.

Many of her friends considered her a slut. Margret knew that well, but she didn’t care. She understood the darkness of this world much better than any of them. She knew what she wanted, and she would do whatever she needed to get it.

Right now, she was stranded with the twins and Anna in this weird Dungeon as the Screen said. They have been here for one day already.

They were in a cave chamber with only one tunnel connecting it making it easy to defend. they found this place a few hours ago.

She was on guard duty now, sitting next to a tunnel entrance, holding a steel dagger. The twins and Anna slept soundly behind her. Luckily the cave was not cold, and they had three sleeping bags, the twins had two in their backpacks, and she carried one. When Victor sent her a message this morning, she read his dirty mind easily. He was probably intending to force them to camp the night in the forest. So she brought a sleeping bag she had, just in case. When she saw the bags he and the twins were carrying this morning, she affirmed her guess.

But not even in her wildest imagination, she would have guessed that they would be lost in a video game dungeon. How can such things exist in real life? Is this a dream? What are these Player and Class things? Did they think she was that naive?

She thought it was a prank first, a very costly one. But after being hit by that goblin and saw blood coming from her arm she realized this was not a trick nor a dream.

When she woke up she was with the twins, while Anna was nearby, They hurried to her when she was screaming after seeing a goblin.

Margret hurried to save Anna and used her bag to hit him but it was more nimble than she expected and it used that stone dagger to slash at her. It looked like a toy, but it was not, that thing was sharp.

She was saved by the twins, they held steel daggers in their hands and hacked at that goblin killing him. They seemed to have received some kind of martial arts training. They were not that good though, but much better than her.

What happened after that surprised her even more, Anna hesitated for a moment, and instead of using the medical kit she had, she anxiously touched the wound making that nasty slash mark begin to heal at a visible speed after a few seconds.

Margret looked at the red line on her arm that was barely visible now, it was still healing. Like magic.

Everything here was like magic. She didn’t want to believe it as she was a realist. She never liked fiction. But the truth is in plain sight in front of her.

That status screen shimmered endlessly as if it was taunting her. It stated her class and attributes.

What does an Enchantress Class mean anyway? Why did she have to get it? Was she a slut for real? even the damn system is implying that.” she wondered.

Suddenly there was a faint sound of a phone’s alarm. they decided to rest here for six hours. Each one of them would stay on guard for an hour and a half. Now the time was over and they needed to keep moving.

Anna and the twin woke up and began to stretch up, sleeping on the floor was not comfortable.

“Did anything happen while we slept?” asked Mina.

“No. we already cleared this area before so there was no trouble. Let’s eat something before we head out,” she answered as she returned the dagger to Mana, while Mina nodded and started to take out some energy bars and water bottles from her bag.

They were lucky that Victor packed all these or they would have resorted to eating that ugly mushroom they saw the goblins munching at.

“I want to ask you something,” Margret said to the girls who sat down and began to eat.

“What?” answered Mina.

“I noticed that our classes have something to do with our life experiences,” she said “For example, Anna, liked to treat injured animals since she was a child, so she was granted a Healer class, while I am an enchantress, for obvious reasons. But the two of you said that your Class was Sword Maid. What did you do to earn your class,” Margret asked while squinting her eyes.

Mina and Mana shivered a little and bowed their heads. Telling their friends about their Class was a mistake. But they were not thinking stright at that time.

“Maybe it was a coincidence?” Mina said, trying to escape the question.

“I don’t believe so. Don’t think that I am stupid, I have already noticed how you move around Victor, and how you repeatedly call him young master, before correcting yourselves, Are you his maids? Answer truthfully I would keep your secret and so would Anna,” She asked and looked at the surprised Anna who quickly nodded, she was curious and not a talkative girl anyway.

Mana looked at her anxious sister then chose to answer.

“Yes. That is true. We are young master Victor’s maids. and we are not living with our aunt. we work in that mansion,” she said.

“What?” Anna was shocked, she thought the twins would just deny Margret’s claims. “Why would you work as maids at a young age, do you need the money? I can help you, while my family is not super-rich, we do run some stores. you just needed to tell me.’ Anna said.

Margret also felt that it was strange, so she asked “Can you tell us the reason?”

Mina looked at Mana who nodded her head, they chose to tell the truth. she looked at Margret and Anna

“I can tell you, but you two have to swear not to tell anyone,” she said.

“Fine, we promise,” They replied.

The twins began to tell their story, how they were haunted by that loan shark then how they broke into that mansion in the forest. And about Hilda who saved them forced them to work in the mansion in exchange for their lives.

“It was aunt Hilda who taught us how to fight, she said all the servants in that family needed to learn how to fight. That’s all I can tell you.” Mina said finishing her story.

“What!!, I didn’t expect that, Why don’t you call the police? They are threatening you and forcing you to be maids.” Asked Anna.

“That won’t work, you won't believe how strong the family is. We tried once. We were returned to the mansion by the police themselves and we were punished hard for that escape.” said Mina as she shivered remembering Hilda’s punishment.

Margret squinted her eyes as she was reevaluating Victor’s worth, his family is even stronger than she had expected. As for Anna she went straight to the twins and hugged them hard.

“We are sorry, you suffered a lot. Can I do anything to help you?” She said with watery eyes. She was always a soft girl.

“It’s OK, Young master Victor treats us very well,” Mina said with a slight smile. She was thankful for Anna’s feelings.

“Can’t you leave them now that you have become Players? Can they keep you?” asked Margret.

But this time it was Mana who shook her head. “No, If my guess is correct, young master Victor and miss Lily should have been Players before coming here.” She said softly, shocking her friends.

“What, why?” Anna asked.

Mina hesitated for a moment, then told them an abridged version of what happened with Nick that night.

“So you are saying that he should be a player to have that supernatural powers, sounds reasonable, considering he was the one who got us here,” said Margret as she pondered.

“I can’t believe that there are such super-humans in the world walking with normal people, I thought that we were the only ones,” Anna said, making the girls nod in approval. If they were not experiencing this themselves they would never believe it I someone told them about it.

“Let’s get going, we need to search for an exit or the others. We only have rations for two more days, so we should act swiftly.” Said Margret as she finished packing her sleeping bag.

The girls nodded and carefully headed out of the chamber. They didn’t know where they were heading to, but Margret marked all the walls of all the tunnels they have been to, and she instructed the twins to keep track of the path and draw a map as they walked. If it were not for her with them, they would probably be in a bad situation.

It was an hour later when they encountered the goblins, there were three of them so the girls went into a formation where the twins took to the offense with their steel daggers, while Margret Defended Anna from the back. Using a staff she got from one of the goblins.

The battle went smoothly and they won with only Mina suffering a dagger stab in her leg. However, the ruckus they caused seemed to have alerted a team of 8 armed goblins that surprised them from the back when they rested after the battle.

The girls didn’t know it but the reason for such a large team of goblins to be together was an order from the General. During the last day, fewer and fewer goblins were coming back to the base, so he ordered a few teams to patrol the dungeon.

Margret looked at them and knew that they were doomed. And they had only one chance to survive.

“Mina, take Anna and your sister and move forward, I will use my charm skill to lead them away,” she said, she was not that heroic, but this was the only way.

“No, you would probably die,” Said Mana.

“It is our only way out, you two are already injured and can’t fight, and I can tell that if one of you stayed the other will too. And Anna can’t possibly hold or lure them.” she said as she saw the goblins raise their spear and began to approach them carefully as if they were thinking ‘Are those ugly monsters the ones who killed all our comrades?’

The girls looked at each other nervously, thinking what to do.

“No we can’t leave you,” said Mina,

Margret sighed, those girls were really stupid, they should always think of themselves first, she thought.

“Don’t worry my skill will keep me safe. They would never kill me. I am faster than them.” she didn’t lie, but her end would be worst than dead if she got caught.

The girls didn’t completely understand Margret’s skills so they looked at her and asked,

“Are you sure?” they asked as they thought of how she would sometimes make the goblin she was fighting with, act weirdly.

“Yes, I will just lure them away and catch up with you later,” she lied this time even if she escaped she would have no way of locating the others in this maze.

“Fine, be careful,” said Mana decisively as she helped Mina, whose leg wound was just healed and was having difficulty walking.

They quickly backed away with Anna, as Margret slowly approached the horde.

The goblins looked at her strangely. Is she going to challenge them? What an ugly creature though. Her poor mother must have thrown her away when she saw the abomination she gave birth to. “At least it still had arms and legs,” the goblins thought. “Slender arms and legs,” they thought. “Beautiful arms and legs, we should make her our wife,” they thought, swallowing their green saliva, as she activated her Charming Eyes skill, and ran away into a big tunnel to her side, hoping that she would lose the goblins and grant the girls time to find a refuge.

The goblins didn’t wait, they began to pursue her quickly with red fervorous eyes. They didn’t run fast though, because of certain swollen things between their legs.

Margret was doing great and was able to gradually increase the distance between her and the goblins. But she had to stop when she realized she had made a mistake, a big mistake. This tunnel, although it was wide, it had no branches, just a dead end.

She stopped there, with tears filling her eyes. She didn’t want such an ending. She wanted to find some young master to marry and live happily ever after.

She slowly turned around to face her doom, thinking that she should probably kill herself.

She didn’t find any goblins behind her, just scattered corpses slowly turning into dust, and a young man with purplish-gray hair standing there like some kind of a thug. He was insolently inspecting her with his eyes as if he was inspecting some vase in an antique store.

“You are interesting. Are you looking for a pimp?” he said with a warm yet arrogant smile, making Margret want to kick him between his legs. That is not a word her prince charming should be saying.

But her actions were different from her thoughts, Although she looked tough, she was still a little girl, and she needed a lot of courage to pull out that stunt.

She threw herself in Victor’s arms and began to sob. She was saved at last.