I hooked my pendulum over the top of a ruined wall and ran up its surface, then leaped out and landed before the two catfolk beastmen hiding there, pulling back my pendulum in a wide arc.
“What the hell?!” the two yelped in unison.
They tried to ready their bows, but before they could, my sickle pendulum embedded itself into the carotid of one. The other stared at me in shock.
“H-Hey, girl, do you know who we—”
“I don’t care,” I interrupted.
But I could guess. Since they’d immediately tried to eliminate us as witnesses, and they were all beastmen, it stood to reason that they were part of the beastmen-only Munza gang. I didn’t know what the gang’s issue with the two boys was, but regardless, it had been important enough that they hadn’t wanted to leave witnesses.
Unfortunately for this guy, now that I’d killed two of their own, I couldn’t afford to leave him alive as a witness either.
“You brat!” he snapped as he drew a single-edged curved sword and swung it at me.
I ducked under the blade and lunged forward, crushing his throat with an elbow strike before wrapping an arm around his neck to snap it.
I’d avoided using a blade for a reason. The first man I’d killed had bled all over his belongings, but among the possessions of the man whose neck I’d snapped, I found an unopened bag containing a scented lure. My guess had been that if these men were serious enough to kill witnesses, they’d likely had spare lures.
I cut open the seal on the spare I’d found and tossed it into the distance. Several of the beetles that had been attacking the boys caught the scent and followed the lure, giving the pair some breathing room. But this was temporary—over time, the smell would disperse and more bugs would arrive, so we had to wrap things up quickly.
“High Cure!”
The healing spell surged forth from Elena, who had caught up by now, toward the Krus boy, whose eyes widened with surprise as his wounds rapidly mended themselves. A pair of beetles, enticed by the presence of new prey, turned toward Elena.
“Waterball!”
Elena’s second spell slowed the beetles down, spreading water everywhere. When the puddle reached her feet, she focused her aether further and slammed both palms into the mud.
“Dig Volt!”
The Level 3 composite water-and-wind spell Dig Volt whipped across the mud and struck the beetles, searing their nerves.
“Screeeeeeeeeeee!” they shrieked, trembling.
Insect-type monsters had little sensitivity to pain. They rarely fled from enemies smaller than themselves and would attack even when damaged. Elemental magic typically had little effect: Wind and water didn’t deal enough damage, fire and earth weren’t very effective unless enhanced, and even ice spells could only slow them down. They were very troublesome to deal with.
But lightning spells were different, as they were able to penetrate their hard carapaces and directly affect their nervous systems.
Since Elena had lost her affinity for the fire element, she’d been practicing lightning spells as an alternative form of offensive magic. Currently, she was only barely able to activate Dig Volt—it didn’t pack enough of a punch to defeat the beetles—but stunning them was enough for now.
I leaped down from the ruined rooftop, my cloak fluttering in the air like the wings of an eerie bird. Lunging at the paralyzed beetles, I took aim and thrust my black knife into the neck joint of one, then sliced its head off. The second soon met the same fate.
Decapitation didn’t instantly kill insects, but without their central nervous system, the beetles couldn’t attack and would eventually perish.
Farther ahead, the two boys were still fighting, but with the insects reduced in number and the Krus boy, now healed, able to protect himself, the dark elf could use his twin daggers to finish off the wounded ones. Finally, only a few insects remained, all close to death.
Without warning, the dark elf boy leaped out from among the bugs and lunged at me, his daggers whistling through the air like a gale.
Clang!
I intercepted the attack with my black dagger, and a shrill sound echoed through the air.
“What’s your angle, woman?” he asked.
“I should be asking you that,” I replied.
Shing!
We separated, striking out at the same time, and sparks flew from our blades once more. The dark elf kicked up sand and I flipped backward to create distance. Mid-movement, I drew a knife from my thigh and flung it, but the boy deflected it with his blades.
“Alia!”
“Camille!”
Ignoring Elena’s and the Krus boy’s shouts, Camille radiated malice toward me. In turn, I readied myself to fight to the death.
I focused Boost on my speed and leaped forward. His blades barely grazed me as I dodged his attempt to intercept without looking away. His eyes widened, and he dodged my leaping thrust by backing away. I followed up with several throwing knives. Off-balance, Camille unleashed a black chain from his sleeve to block the oncoming blades.
A thin magic iron weighted chain. The demoness I’d defeated in the mountain village had used something similar. If he had the String Manipulation skill, the power of his chain would exceed that of my pendulums.
He continued to swing his chain, crushing ground and rock as the tip rotated at high speeds. I predicted its trajectory, took out my weighted pendulum, and unleashed it to intercept the chain, producing an ear-piercing clang that echoed through the desert night.
Our similar weapons, the string and the chain, entangled in a breathtaking moment. Neither of us let go, pulling with our left arms as our aether surged and we readied our combat techniques—
“Stop this, Alia!”
“Stop right now!”
As the shouts echoed from nearby, our techniques misfired, and our blades stopped just shy of each other’s foreheads.
“Wait. Camille, wait!” the Krus boy shouted, stepping breathlessly between us.
He’d finished off all the remaining beetles, it seemed. I used String Manipulation to untangle my pendulum from the dark elf’s chain and backed away. Elena, looking quite stern, stepped up to stand beside me.
“What are you doing?” she asked the boys, her voice sharp with anger.
She must’ve been quite enraged, because her whole body was thrumming with aether as though she were about to cast a spell, and her golden hair was floating slightly, rippling through the air as if electrified.
Camille, wary of Elena, made as if to step forward, but the Krus boy raised a hand to stop him.
“I said wait, damn it,” the boy snapped. “You’re in the wrong here. They were helping us.”
“We were fine on our own,” Camille protested.
“Oh, for crying—” The Krus boy paused. “Whatever. Sorry about that, Mercenian ladies.”
Elena was startled at the realization that the hood hiding her face had slipped down. She reflexively reached for it but stopped and decided to confront him with her face bared, glaring.
She must’ve noticed it too—a sharp, appraising gaze from the Krus boy that had lasted just a moment.
“I’m terribly sorry for the mix-up,” the boy said. “Can we talk? What’s your name?”
“It’s rude to ask a woman for her name before offering your own,” Elena retorted.
“You’re right. I’m Ron.”
“I see. Call me Lena.”
Both names were clearly fake, but there was no point in using real names here. I was just an adventurer, so it wasn’t an issue—besides which I used a fake name in the first place—but Elena was a princess, so giving out her real name casually was a bad idea.
Ron didn’t seem to mind the fake introductions and bowed his head, his expression serious.
“Thank you for the assistance,” he said. “We had some...troublesome individuals after us.”
“Did you do something to earn their ire?” Elena asked, playing dumb about the Munza gang.
Ron gave a strained smile. “We may have crushed one of their businesses. But you two are probably safe now. Maybe? I believe that lady over there finished off the others.” His gaze turned to me, and his eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re pretty strong, aren’t you? This is the first time I’ve seen a girl who can fight toe-to-toe with Camille.”
“Your friend is quite strong too,” Elena remarked.
Camille was, indeed, powerful. I couldn’t measure his combat power accurately due to his cloak, and neither could he measure mine, but I felt his abilities had to at least match if not surpass my own. Had our fight continued, I would have redoubled my efforts to win, but he probably felt the same. From our brief crossing of blades, I could tell he had a few aces up his sleeve too.
“Are there many fighters as skilled as you in town?” Elena asked.
“Hardly,” Ron replied. “If guys as strong as Camille were gallivanting around everywhere, I’d have long since quit town. But...if you’re asking that, you must be pretty new here, no?”
“Is that relevant?” Elena said coolly, deflecting the thinly veiled probe.
Ron shrugged and gave a small smile. “Not really. I just thought you seem like a proper young lady, and she looks like your guard...”
“Oh dear. So we look like you two, then?”
Elena and Ron exchanged cold smiles while Camille and I exchanged silent glares.
“Look, that’s enough.”
Surprisingly, it was Camille who broke the tense atmosphere. He placed a hand on Ron’s shoulder, and the Krus boy gave him a somewhat displeased look in turn. Camille then flicked something at me.
I caught the object in midair. When I opened my palm, I saw a large golden coin, but the currency was unfamiliar to me.
“It’s Kal’Faan gold,” Camille said. “I trust that won’t be a problem?”
“This seems like a lot,” I replied.
If this coin was similar in value to a large gold coin in Claydale, it would be quite the sum. It felt like too much for just coming to their rescue.
“It includes an apology for Ron’s rudeness,” Camille explained, seemingly having forgotten his own contributions.
“Excuse me?” Ron said, giving his companion a pitiful half-lidded look.
With the atmosphere having relaxed somewhat, Elena plucked the coin from my hand and flashed them a mischievous smile.
“For that much rudeness?” she said coyly, her expression serene. “I would say this doesn’t quite cover it.”
Ron smiled wryly at Elena and tossed a smaller gold coin my way. “Pricey, pricey. But compared to our lives, this is nothing. Well, then, we should go our separate ways. More bugs might show up.”
“Yes, let’s,” Elena agreed. “Would it be all right for us to act as strangers in town, by the way?”
“That would be ideal,” Ron said. We began to walk away, but he called out, “Say, allow me to give you one final piece of advice...”
We stopped.
“Don’t trust anyone in that town,” he said. “Don’t trust children. Don’t trust the elderly. Anyone smiling at you today could put a knife in you tomorrow. Of course...that includes us too.”