"Y-You will not get away with this…"

The leader of the temple people looked to be in pain. His back had been fractured due to Mary's landing, and his consciousness seemed to be leaving him fast.

He tried to reach and grab Mary to teach her a lesson, but the more he tried, the more he felt in pain. It also caused him to lose consciousness quickly, causing him to close his eyes and let his hand fall to the ground.

"Oh my! Looks like I knocked him out well. I hope I did not accidentally kill him. Should I do something about her, my lady?"

Mary asked with a small giggle as she stepped away from the unconscious body. Her words and carefree actions told a story different from her tone.

'Ah, Mary is enjoying this. But I have to admit, she had perfect timing. As soon as she showed up, everyone began to look conscious of what they were doing. I might be able to make use of it.'

The first course of action was to secure this place and catch all the attackers.

"Mary, if you are done securing your perimeters, gather everyone up here and tie them up. Once we have them all, I will think about what to do with them."

Layla assured as she looked at the small group in front of her.

The temple's party that had attacked her had only about ten or so people, and they all looked shocked and confused as soon as their leader had been taken out.

Layla could tell that no one here had any idea what to do next, so she gave them all a choice.

"Look, I am being generous here, so why don't you all surrender now and save me the hassle of calling you all out? If not, then we might have a problem with each other."

This was the last chance for these people to surrender and avoid trouble with the Ducal household.

Most of these temple people knew that as well.

However, they did not respect Layla due to her young age and ambitious attitude. She was also not polite to them, which made them dislike her even more.

"Tsk, as if we would ever surrender to a kid-"

Mary did not take kindly to this insult, and her feet 'accidentally' kicked the complaining man in his stomach to knock him out.

"Oh my! What a terrible mistake I made because I was not paying attention to what I was doing. I am so sorry for what happened. Here, let me make it up to you."

Mary spoke as she extended her hand toward the fallen man. But her eyes told the man that he had earned himself a slow and painful death at her hand.

The man shivered as he quickly backed away and pulled his hand back. But he was not the only one who looked spooked out by Mary.

Everyone else had closed their mouths and pulled back from her as well. She was too scary to come close to and looked too harmless to say these words out loud.

"Mary, secure our opponents so they cannot escape. I will leave it all up to you. If you need any help, get it from the elves. I will consider this matter resolved until you say otherwise."

Layla looked at the subdued captives in front of her.

Now that those people knew they could not win against Mary, they had stopped trying.

Instead, they had calmed down and started adjusting to their fate as the captives that the Ducal household had captured.

"Sure thing, young miss! I am sure Lord Lockhart would have a field day trying to negotiate with the temple now. He was looking for another way to push them back and stop them from butting into more of his businesses."

Mary spoke happily, and her words caused some captives to frown and shiver.

The last thing anyone wanted to do here was be a burden on the temple and end up on their 'list' of people to cut off. And this situation assured these people that they would make that list no matter what happened.

"Young miss, what is going on out there? If the conflict is over, can you let us out? It is suffocating to be under this shield."

The elf queen asked as she tapped the barrier to let Layla know she needed to come out.

Layla sighed before dropping the barrier and allowing everyone there to come out.

"We have defeated our enemies, and now we are capturing them. Don't worry! I won't ask you to accompany them back. I will get someone from the Ducal household to do that.

Mary, prepare for that and ask the Ducal house to send the strongest warrior here to keep an eye on these temple people."

Layla ordered, and Mary quickly bowed before she wrote a letter and then burned it. She had used a special flame to ensure the Duke would get her word as soon as possible.

The reply came quickly, and by the end of the day, a few guards had arrived from the Duke's castle to capture the temple attackers and take them into custody.

"Ha, we finally caught some temple rats. It will be fun when we use them, and they cry out that they are not guilty. It is always fun to see these people acting desperate…. Woah, young miss! It is nice to meet you."

Those were the first words Layla heard from the guards in the Duke's household before the man finally greeted Layla.

Had she not expected this, Layla would have been taken by surprise.

But since she knew about the rivalry between her household and the temple, she did not take anything that was said to heart.

"Make sure they get home in one piece and can confess. Other than that, I do not have another request for you all."

Layla assured the guard party, and they saluted her before following her order.