Cecily had arrived at the capital. On her way, she'd killed around forty werewolves. It was a long trip that took two months on foot with many detours. Along the way, she found that her hunter alias was the Lavandula, the lavender flower. She was revered by the hunters and feared and abhorred by the werewolves.
The general time period of the world seemed to be around the Victorian era based on the clothing, but obviously the underworld dress was vastly different and more modern and versatile with the leather and fur. She had met very few hunters on the way and everyone was garbed in a similar fashion to herself - leather jackets, some had used the pelts of their prey as scarves and coats, and silver buttons, belts, and buckles adorned their gear ergonomically.
When in their disguises, the werewolves and hunters dressed similarly to the humans of the day in their frock coats, waistcoats, trousers, top hats, and walking sticks - the full package. Of course, those were the men. The women were fully garbed in evening dresses with neck-line berthas, boning corsets, tightly fit sleeves, and silhouettes puffed up the skirts.
The werewolves who were more unruly and cared little for human interaction almost always dressed only in furs and loose cotton material.
As she had no money, Cecily did not have the correct dress to freely roam the streets of the bustling capital. Thus, she remained moving about in the shadows, only observing from the dark. Imagine the adverse reactions the men and women of this era would have if she were to step out brazenly exhibiting her long, sexy, and exposed legs in such a conservative society where the dresses dragged on the floor as the women walked.
The capital city was so bright that it almost seemed as if the underworld really did not exist. Little did most of the humans know that werewolves were roaming about even then. Yes, even though werewolves had been encroaching upon the human territory for the past ten years, their actions were still low-key enough to hide their existences from the majority of the humans who believed the werewolves to be only myths. This was also the main reason most hunters had two identities. They had to retain their livelihood in the day whilst hunting for no real gain or profit in the night.
Even though Cecily was widely known amongst the werewolves, she did not really live a normal human life after the deaths of her parents and siblings so most humans did not know of what happened to the daughter of the fallen aristocratic Lavande family. It was assumed that she had died along with the rest of her family and the name was empty with only her elderly grandfather to hold it up. But even if nobody knew her face now, she had no plans to expose her face to the people of the capital so that she would have more freedom to complete her tasks.
Cecily was currently in an alleyway before the crowded and bustling marketplace. The smell of fresh produce and food stalls lingered in the air. She had gained some information from the hunters she'd met along her journey that there was a hunter's association base nearby. The gatekeeper was a butcher by the name of Jeoffrey who owned his own shop, Hunters' Meet.
She had planned to tell him to alert the hunters of her future plans in deposing the king and appointing a new one. The hunters would have to be prepared because the current king had deals with Valentine and his lackeys, and it was not a very well-guarded secret amongst the hunters in the first place. Cecily was counting on the fact that the hunters would do a good job and protect the new king as she still had other things to do and it's not as if her task included ensuring the survival of the newly appointed king anyway. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
So when she snuck into the butcher shop without any prior notice she undoubtedly alerted the man behind the clerk's counter, Jeoffrey, who immediately pulled out his revolver with an elongated barrel as he aimed it towards the window; she was currently kneeling on its sill. Luckily or unluckily for him, there were rarely any normal human customers in the store, so even if other hunters were within the vicinity they would only draw their weapons alongside him to help him rid them of the intruder.
Her lavender eyes were crinkled into narrow crescents as she smiled when her alluring voice echoed within the enclosed building filled with meat, "The king will die."
Then she flashed out of the butcher shop, leaving a dazed Jeoffrey as he mumbled to himself, "Was that the Lavandula?"
She was approaching the immensely tall and narrow, asymmetrical castle that the king resided in. Its windows were large and filled with stained glass. There were high metal fences with sharp, pointed edges at the tips enclosing the castle from the rest of the neighborhood of nobility as well as a wide river that probably spanned across the entire perimeter of the castle grounds. Two bridges were placed at the front entrance of the castle a few hundred meters apart from each other to connect the castle with the rest of the kingdom.
The imposing fences did not stop Cecily from infiltrating the premises, effortlessly bypassing the entourage of knights guarding the entrance and patrolling the castle grounds.
'001, can I have a blueprint of the castle? Also, what is that fat king doing at the moment?' Cecily assumed the king to be a stereotypical round ball of a king since he was said to be corrupted and greedy. It only made sense that he would be fat.
[Yes, host. Currently, the king is in the throne room listening to his ministers' complaints. It is early in the day after all. Will you still insist on killing him in front of so many higher-ups?] 001 was not concerned about the act itself, but rather the fact that there were also corrupted higher-ups and they could report her actions directly to Valentine, making her a large target.
'Doesn't matter. We can always get rid of them too and take care of the consequences after completing the task and gaining the rewards. What is Valentine doing at the moment?' Cecily knew that the werewolf behind the human king was Valentine, so she had asked 001 to keep tabs on the man. As for Hugh Noir, she was completing one of his original goals ahead of time for him so she didn't bother thinking about what he would do as a result of her killing the king. Of course, that didn't stop her from monitoring him either and she wasn't surprised that he was also in the capital since he was probably meeting up with some hunters.
Her grandfather was the leader of the association in the capital, as the Lavande family was also based in the capital. She assumed he was conducting a normal meeting with her grandfather.
[Valentine has been holed up in the North as usual. His subordinates are also the same as usual, eating and creating.]
In the original timeline, Valentine was known more for his schemes rather than his strength. It came as no surprise that he'd continue sitting on his throne whilst commanding his troops to do the dirty work. Part of the reason Cecily had no qualms in outright killing the human king was to try dragging Valentine out into the open for his arch nemesis, Hugh, to deal some damage to. Then she'd swoop in and steal the kill at the last second and deal with the worn-out King of the South. It was a very loose plan, but that would be the ideal way to do things.
She had never fought or met a pureblood personally, and could only remember from the original body's memories that Valentine's presence was already quite monstrous to the point of making her want to kneel. That was when she was told that Hugh was the perpetrator behind her family's deaths. If Hugh was exponentially more powerful than Valentine, then winning a straightforward battle was hoping for too much.
Throughout her short conversation with 001, Cecily had already arrived at the throne room and the ministers were currently yelling at each other in the midst of a heated argument. Though she had only been killing werewolves out of the body's hate for them in the beginning, she had naturally adapted to this world after the past few months. Cecily would just think of these humans as if they were werewolves. They were colluding with them after all.
"The taxes should be raised in the northern district! Those noble people are already in a state of unrest due to the disappearance of some of their slaves and farmhands. If we increase the taxes, they would naturally stop pestering us about those insignificant lives!" One of the ministers yelled out an unreasonable argument, making Cecily roll her eyes inwardly.
"Nonsense! Where would the peasants get the money? Your majesty, we should dispatch more troops to guard the northern district to stop the disappearances instead! We need to focus on getting rid of the problem by its roots, not by adding fuel to the fire!" This was a more plausible argument worthy and expected of a minister.
The king had just cleared his throat to gain his ministers' attention when a shadow descended from the ceiling behind the king's tall golden throne, holding a dark sword against his layered-with-globs-of-fat neck. Under the piercing glare of the elegant glass chandelier, the sword shone ominously, as the amethysts and the assailant's eyes shimmered coldly.
The room instantly fell silent.
