The Devil Duchess Adopts The Villainess

Gentle warm rays of afternoon sunlight fell through the canopy of trees as Elise and her party finally exited the forest after a couple hours of travel. There were a few monster attacks but nothing on the level of the viperion from before, it was almost as if a strange hand were guiding them unconsciously away from the nests of the more powerful beasts.

Elise was not a superstitious person but as the horses strolled out of the treeline, she closed her eyes and muttered a small pray of thanks. There was no proof that the hunter goddess was the one behind the strange feelings but the female voice in her head that lead her to Ashley formed small traces of doubt in her mind.

Were the old gods really gone from the continent? Elise was determined to do some research in the family archives once they arrived at the castle.

“Bye big sister goddess!”, Ashley beamed and cheerfully waved at the departing forest behind her.

There was a faint sound of the rustling of leaves that seemed to indicate a presence in the forest responding to her. Unknown to the mother and daughter pair a ghostly woman was watching them leave with warmth in her eyes.

Elise rubbed her daughter’s head gently and asked, “Do you want to come back and build another shrine to the huntress?”

Ashley was thrilled, “Yeah! Big sister goddess is one of my favourite people!” she quickly exclaimed.

Elise was irritated by a small sense of jealousy and replied, “Oh? And who is your favourite person then?”

Ashley looked up and saw her mom pouting unconsciously, she quickly said, “My mommy is my favourite.”

Elise did not say a word, but the tips of her ears slowly turned red and she started to braid Ashley’s hair in a good mood. The horses neighed loudly as the party approached the walls of Arcadia.

The city of Arcadia was unlike any other city in the continent, it was more akin to a fortress at war rather than the capitol city of a dukedom.

It was surrounded on all sides by massive grey walls over sixty feet in length with glowing earth runes embedded to improve the strength and stability. The area enclosed by the walls was enormous in size and the city only took up a fraction of the land inside.

A beautiful lake sat in the middle of Arcadia surrounded by lush forests with small animals and plants. There were two entrances to the city with one gate on the northern side which bordered the forgotten forest and another gate on the southern side leading to a small harbour built outside the city.

The harbour was a temporary one as it would constantly have to be rebuilt at the end of spring. During the more harsher months, the residents would move into the main city for protection.

Few travellers would arrive from the forest and most merchants would use the harbour which lead to the Caspian Sea to transport goods to and from Arcadia to the rest of the continent. Despite the dangerous travel, Arcadia was appealing to plenty merchant and financial groups as a steady supply of monster parts and magical cores could be bought from the city.

The party approached the gate, it was made of iron plated bars which clamped down menacingly to the outside. Despite this, the gate was small and was only the length of two carriages side by side, during the spring the gate would become a liability during the monster attacks, so it was purposely designed to be as small as possible.

“Halt! State your name and identification!” a tough looking guardsman yelled from the ramparts.

Elise cocked an eyebrow and simply pointed to the crest on the carriage behind her in a confident manner. The guardsman took one look and hurriedly began to raise the gates to let them in.

It was the duchess herself! Would he not be seeking death if he decided to stop and ask her for ID papers? The very thought frightened the man, so he quickly gestured for Elise and her party to venture inside.

Ashley was very curious about the dukedom as she rode through the gates with her mom, her old parents would rarely stay in their territory and spent most of their time in the capitol trying to amass political power from several noble factions of the court.

Ashley therefore grew up in the capitol and was accustomed to how life was for the nobles and the common folk. The common folk were separated by walls and borders and lived in abject poverty while the nobles adorned their mansions with gold and precious metals.

She clung tightly to her mom as she opened her eyes to take in the sites around her and was struck by the fresh and clean air surrounding her. There were bright smiles and laughter on people’s faces as they rode by.

Many waved at the carriage as it passed their homes, the houses themselves were simple but radiated a sense of warmth and coziness. The peasants were well dressed, and Ashley could not see any beggars or street urchins anywhere.

Elise’s dukedom had an extremely high standard of living as her family spent most of their resources improving the sanitary and living conditions for the residents within the city. There was no presence of a chapel or any structure related to the church which was a good sign as demi-humans and dark races were abundant present throughout the street.

Elise saw a dark elf woman with her two children haggling with a demon selling fruits on the side of the road. Elsewhere a merman was sharing a drink with a lion beast man and loudly boasting of his warrior exploits. An atmosphere of friendliness spread through the city and Ashley could not believe that humans could live side by side with dark races, it went against all the church’s knowledge that she had read in books.

Elise could see the surprise in her eyes and whispered,” Are you getting overwhelmed?”

“Mommy how come people aren’t fighting with the dark races? In my old books it says that they can’t live together with humans without trying to kill them.”

Elise was not surprised, many of the first-time visitors or refugees entering the dukedom were shocked and wary of the dark races present. Some would leave almost immediately to seek out shelter in neighbouring kingdoms, but others would stay and come to see that the Blackwolf family would treat all races with a level of justice and fairness.

“You’ve been travelling with big sisters that are from the dark races. Has Servia, Luxia or Elena tried to hurt you?”

Ashley shook her head no and started to contemplate, those big sisters had always been very nice to her and were nothing like how the books in her parent’s library described them. Elise smiled as she saw her daughter starting to think and doubt the prejudice spread towards the dark races by church doctrines.

“Ashley I’m going to tell you something very important.”

Her daughter looked up and stayed silent as she realised Elise was adopting a serious tone.

“There are no such thing as good or bad races, there are only good or bad people. No man is more predisposed to evil than any other.”

“And some of the worse monsters I’ve fought were not those who looked different than me but those that resembled me.”

“Humans can also be the cruellest of all.”

She hugged her daughter tightly, so Ashley failed to realise when her head was buried into her mom’s chest that Elise was stroking a vicious scar on her right shoulder with a pained look on her face.

An unwanted memory surfaced on her mind and her hand involuntarily started to shake as a grimace appeared on her face.

A little girl was chained to the floor with an iron clamp tightly snapped onto her right shoulder. She plead and screamed at her captors day after day to let her out. The begging turned to sobs and she prayed that someone would come to rescue her. Wuxiaworld for visiting.

No one came