a级黑粗大硬长爽猛出猛进

"Welcome back, Young Mistress. The Madam is waiting for you inside."

Geez, it\'s almost as if she already knew I was coming.

I stepped inside the room, realising that it was just a normal sitting room complete with a fireplace and several couches and tea tables.

The other maids had arranged themselves around the room, a few of them already moving to prepare tea for me.

Mother was seated in the largest couch sipping on some tea and she smiled when she saw me enter.

"Ara, ara~ Welcome back my little one~ Congratulations on winning the tournament~"

I went over to her and she scooted a little to the side to allow me to sit beside her.

"Thank you Mommy. Were you watching?"

"Ufufufu~ Of course I was my little one~ As expected of my little one to win~"

"Unn… But I only won because of the girls though, they were marvellous."

Katsuki and the others seemed to preen at my words and well, they deserve it.

Mother gave me a fond look, "Ufufufu~ I would say they only managed to do it because of you my little one~ Isn\'t that so, dears?"

Katsuki immediately bowed, "Of course, Madam. Mistress wished for us to win, therefore there shall be no other outcome but victory."

"Ara, ara~ It seems like Mary is definitely rubbing off on you, little Katsuki~ Ufufufu~"

That reminds me…

"Mommy… Did you… Do something during the tournament? Like… Manipulate the coin toss or something?"

She tilted her head slightly, "Ara? Did something happen during the coin toss, my little one?"

I would have thought that Mother was simply avoiding the question again but this time she seemed to be genuinely curious about it.

Wait… If Mother was asking such a question, that meant that she didn\'t see what I saw during the tournament… It certainly did feel like the coin had been manipulated slightly and the piece of paper did slip into my fingers while I was digging through the box…

But what if it was all just a mistake on my part? Maybe I had imagined the entire thing or maybe there might have been a normal explanation behind all that?

I was deciding if I should tell Mother about it and decided that it\'s better to just share it, just in case I wasn\'t actually mistaken.

"During the fight in the arena… When they did the coin toss, I noticed that the coin seemed to change its path slightly in the air, almost like someone had nudged it while it was in the air. Then when I had to draw the number of support units from the box, a specific piece of it would keep sliding into my hand as though wanting me to choose it."

Mother\'s lips curled downwards slightly before turning to Mary, "What is the meaning of this?"

Mary immediately lowered her head, "My apologies Madam… But we--"

"Save it. Find out, now."

"At once."

I wasn\'t even sure what was going on before Mary disappeared from where she had been standing moments ago alongside several of the other maids.

Mother then turned back to me, "Tell me everything, my little one. Did anything else happen that you felt was out of place during the tournament?"

"Eh? Erm… Not really? It was just the coin and the paper thing… Is something wrong, Mommy?"

Unexpectedly, she pulled me in and hugged me to her chest, "Oh my poor little one… You don\'t need to worry at all, Mama will make sure you are safe!"

Err… Seeing how she\'s acting like this, I guess it\'s safe to assume that she had nothing to do with that incident?

"Umm… Is it really that serious, Mommy? I think someone was just trying to manipulate the results of the coin toss and the support drawing to win the bets they made on the teams."

Mother hummed, "Hmm… But if that\'s the case, they would have done more than just influence such superficial things. Neither of these would be that big of an advantage to ensure one side will win over the other unless they know both teams intimately. But since it\'s your first time competing, it would not make sense for them to just stop at that if they really wanted to cheat."

"Mmm… I guess so… Then why would anyone even try to influence those two things then?"

Mother turned back to the space behind her just as a portal appeared and Mary stepped out of it.

The Trasif maid lowered her head once again, "I apologise for my inadequacy, Madam… I have done a search and I believe we know the culprit."

Eh?

Wait, seriously? How did you even find out?

This was something that happened like… At least a few hours ago, you know? And it was only an instant too without any visible trace right? How did you even find out who was responsible for it?

Mother did not look surprised and nodded, "Tell me."

"It\'s Crystal\'s family, Madam."

Crystal? Oh! That ninja girl that got caught by Emilia on her ship!

I actually totally forgot about her… And her sister too…

Hey, I had other things to worry about aside from ninjas trying to assassinate me, ok?

Now I\'m wondering what happened to them? Did Crystal properly explain what the plan was to her sister? Did they manage to explain it to their family?

Also… Did Emilia get involved in more attempted assassinations from those guys?

Mother\'s eyebrows lowered slightly, "And how did they manage to get close to my little one?"

"They did not, Madam. They were manipulating the items from afar using strings."

Mary then lifted her hands while pinching her index fingers and thumbs together as though she was pinching something.

Except… There was nothing in between her fingers?

No wait! I think I saw a slight reflection of light there?

I leaned a little closer towards Mary and I finally saw what looked like an incredibly thin piece of string held in between her fingers.

"Where was it?" Mother asked, her hand reaching up to start stroking my head.

"They were attached to the coin and the pieces of paper."

"And why did no one catch this?"

"The string was not designed to cause harm directly, Madam."

"Mmm… And the culprits?"

"They have already left the premises, Madam. Shall we give chase?"

Mother paused for a moment, giving my head a few more strokes before speaking again.

"Do we know what their goal was?"

"I\'m afraid not, Madam. Although if I am allowed to guess, I would say that they were trying to test the Young Mistress."

"Test her?"

"Yes. They are already aware that the Young Mistress had something to do with Crystal\'s and her sister\'s disappearance. Thus I suspect that they might be trying to test the security around the Young Mistress to see what kind of preparations they needed to engage her."

When Mary said that, her gaze drifted to Katsuki and the others standing behind me.

Mother\'s hand stopped, "Are you suggesting that they might attempt an assassination on my little one?"

"I do not believe it would skip to assassination directly, Madam. But kidnapping would be very possible as they might want to find out more details about the state Crystal and her sister are in from the Young Mistress."

"Have those two not contacted their family at all?"

"Crystal has tried to. She claims that their family uses \'drops\' to send messages to each other but either they have not checked them since her supposed death or something or someone else was intercepting them."

I felt a slight chill go down my spine.

Mother hugged me a little closer to her, "Can we assume that there\'s someone in her family that would prefer that Crystal stay dead?"

"It is quite likely."

Mother hummed again as she continued to pat my head.

I looked up at her, "Umm… What should I do, Mommy?"

Her lips curled into a smile, "There\'s nothing you need to do my little one~ Would you like to come back here tomorrow to look at the other sections of the exhibition?"

"Would that be alright? I was thinking of going to the pleasure slave section tomorrow just to take a look."

"Ara, ara~ My little one is looking to have some fun? Ufufufu~ If my dearest little one would like to, why don\'t you sleep with Mama tonight?"

"Ah… Err… I… Actually… Ok…"

I mean… She was hugging me quite tightly after she asked that which pretty much told me that she was hoping that I would say yes.

Oh well, it\'s not like it would be my first time sleeping with Mother in the same bed anyway and I bet she just wanted to cuddle. Probably because she now knew that there was a group that was actively targeting me and didn\'t want me to be alone or something.

Speaking of which… Seems like Crystal has some family problems of her own huh?