It was almost dawn. The faint sunlight lit up the clouds, painting them purple and orange. The trees began to green, and the rays of sun that pierced through the leaves gave their branches and trunks color.
A solitary shadow ran between the trees. Her black skirt billowed in the wind. Her dress armor didn’t fit the thick forest around her; however, it looked good against the clouds in the brightening sky.
Once she had found her prey, she went straight towards it without slowing down in the slightest. Her prey was within a pack of lupine monsters. The pack immediately began to flee as soon as they saw her, but the difference in their speeds was too great. So they split up and darted for the trees to hide—except for her target, which weaved masterfully around them. This should’ve made it harder for Ariya to catch it, but with the Shadow Zekkinotachi, she cut down the trees in front of her before continuing to pursue it without altering her course.
It took Ariya just a few minutes to close the gap and slash the wolf in half.
“Perhaps that was slightly unnecessary,” she mumbled to herself.
Zekkinotachi could cut through anything, but using it consumed a lot of mana. At the very least, at her current level of mana manipulation, a single swing burned through a decent amount of mana. She’d been very sloppy in her pursuit of the wolf and had spent a lot more mana than she’d needed to.
She carried the two halves of the wolf’s corpse to a clearing not too far away. “I might have gone a little too far trying to vent my feelings.” She smiled wryly as she looked at the corpse.
Reflecting on her actions didn’t clear up the turbulent feelings inside her. As she began a simple dissection of the wolf to obtain proof of its death for her job, she couldn’t help but dwell on her internal turmoil. She had no clue when or why it had started, but she couldn’t seem to rid herself of these murky feelings.
After the coup, she’d left the castle with Inori after he’d made her a vampire. Ever since then, she’d done nothing but train and keep moving. She hadn’t had a single moment to rest. But since they’d arrived at Regin, she’d basically been separated from Inori, and maybe that space was what had finally allowed her to realize the situation she was in.
Or maybe she’d realized it when Inori had used her to test out his Skills. Or maybe when he’d been dragged off by the Holy Knight named Fanatique. Maybe the realization had been bundled up with how she’d felt when Fanatique had said those words to her. Maybe it was because of the weird way that Inori looked at her. Maybe it was in how much his actions and the things he said annoyed her. And why didn’t Inori say anything? Could he not tell that she was avoiding him?
She had no idea how she felt about him. Every time she tried to think about it, it was as though something inside her would break. Alarm bells would go off inside her mind, telling her to stay away. And in the first place, she didn’t want to feel. Why did she have to feel...whatever this was, at all? The only thing she was sure of was that the feeling was persistent, and spanned across her entire body.
She let out a sigh. She’d hoped that she would feel better, but she didn’t. In contrast, despite the rising sun dispelling the forest shadows, she felt like a greater shadow was cast over her heart. In the face of the light, she squinted.
“Oh.” There was a patch of dawn flowers in the clearing. At dawn, the translucent, pale-yellow petals had quietly opened. By the time the sun had fully risen, the clearing was filled with flowers, giving the area a sort of mystical feel.
“I hadn’t expected there to be flowers here, but this is perfect.” Ariya smiled slightly, and then began to pick some flowers.