The sound of faint lightning current and a hammer striking steel resounded throughout an ill-organised workshop. Despite the mess of various parts, tools, and miscellaneous items, it was clear that this wasn’t a dingy workshop at all.

  Everything seemed expensive, and unknown machinery littered the place.

  To get to the source of the noise, Maarkus had to traverse what felt like a lengthy labyrinth. He still remembered when this place had been brand new and fully opened. The place had been so large that one’s own voice would echo back at them.

  But now, materials, unfinished inventions, and all sorts of things had piled up. There was an order to the chaos for sure, but no one but the person in charge of it all could decrypt it.

  “Now… It has been a long time since I saw you create such a thing”

  The cleric approached a man sitting at a table. There was a rather large project being constructed upon it. The construct looked rather… Prone to violence.

  “Maarkus. What might you be doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same question, Sir Nebulo… Or can I just call you Leton in private?”

  “You can do whatever you want… I do not care much about the honorifics anyway”

  “That doesn’t really answer me, though, does it? Since when have you gone back to working in your workshop in the dead of night? Are you really leaving your wife alone in the bedroom?”

  “...First of all, I would like to say that my bedroom has become a dangerous area for me. My wife has far too much stamina for me, and secondly, I work at night when it matters. And something matters tremendously at the moment”

  Maarkus glanced at what was being built.

  “What could possibly be important enough for you to build a military automaton? I thought you had decided to stop and leave the military sector to figure things out for themselves…”

  The cleric remembered very well that Leton had only ever created automatons and inventions for the military sector for the sake of building up money. Since then, he had only focused on utilities, novelties, and entertainment.

  Nowadays, he was the head of the greatest entertainment using automatons and had basically bought most of the competition after they fell face-first trying to imitate him. Money was not a problem for him. He was even said to be the third richest man in the kingdom.

  “Not to mention… This seems to be a particularly nasty one…”

  The automaton was being built with very little aesthetic in mind. It had long legs that could bend in any direction, and one of its arms ended with a sickle whose sharpness Maarkus could feel even whilst standing several steps away from it…

  Leton never revealed how he was able to build his automatons, but everyone knew by now that it had something to do with him specifically. Otherwise, imitators wouldn’t have all failed so spectacularly when they could literally copy him.

  Somehow, he could manifest automatons made from steel in very little time despite having a frail body that should limit him greatly. He was working with heavy steel and complex machines after all. And yet, he rarely seemed very tired after a working session.

  “You know very well what is important enough to require such a creation…”

  “Leton. She was sliced to pieces by a knight of Lord Hulx. He felt experience surge toward him afterwards. She is dead already”

  “Wrong, wrong, and wrong! Gallilah thought that she had felt a surge of experience as well, and yet-! My sister does not go down so easily. It is clear that merely cutting her up a bit is not enough to deal with her… And you should know that she isn’t one to let go of grudges…”

  “...She has already clearly grown in power. If this continues, it will be a slaughter!”

  Maarkus glanced between the automaton and Leton.

  “And so, you’re going to build a murder machine to kill her? I don’t get it, Leton. I don’t get why you were so unwilling to care about her from the very beginning! Isn’t she your sister? Is there something that I do not know?”

  “You know nothing about Mara, Maarkus. She’s… She’s evil incarnate. She was barely human, even when she was one”

  “What are you on about? Did she not care for you? She was always here to come to your defence! I know that she was a bit peculiar, but still!”

  Leton sighed heavily, his eyes turning to the cleric. Leton and Mara were twins, and they did look a lot alike. Black hair, and this sharp glare… But there was one thing they did not share, and that was their eye colour.

  Mara’s purple eyes were of a shade that Maarkus had never seen anywhere else. They were enchanting and mesmerising. It was like staring into the void.

  Leton’s eyes were also purple, but of a much more mundane shade. Even if rare, they seemed terribly basic next to his sister’s.

  “...She did try to be a good sister… But she did not try to be a good person in the least”

  “Is this about what happened at Harvey’s Diner? I am still unconvinced that she actually had anything to do with this, and considering her current state… She clearly didn’t actually run away at all, right?”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Harvey’s Diner… It is but one of many things she did. You should check the records of the city, Maarkus. I think you’ll notice something”

  “Is there a need to be so cryptic?”

  “Of course, you won’t believe me if I’m the one to tell you about it”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you are still lovestruck. It’s been more than twenty years. You might have preserved your outward youth, but you’ve aged mentally, and yet… You still can’t let go of your old crush… Even after seeing the monster that she has become”

  Maarkus frowned. He would have liked to deny the accusation, but he couldn’t fight back against the truth. Somehow, despite the horrid creature that had tried to kill him having been Mara, the knowledge that she was still alive had still come as a great relief to him.

  The exorcist stayed silent for several long seconds as Leton simply continued to work on the machine.

  “Do you really think a single automaton is enough to deal with her? Mara survived far worse”

  “Do not undersell this automaton… He will be my greatest masterpiece in the realm of combat automatons. SHLAD-01 will be capable of fulfilling his mission…”

  ___

  “T-Thank you, Miss- I mean, Lady! But we can handle it from there. The criminal is already done for. There is no need to break every bone in his body, alright? The court will decide which of his hands he loses…”

  I did not respond because I could not. So I merely gave the guard a nod despite really wanting to tell him to screw off and let me paint the streets red.

  Turns out losing the ability to speak whilst in my knightly form was a bit more problematic than I thought. It was really hard to get any point across, but my actions spoke loudly on their own.

  Ever since arriving in this little town whose name I hadn’t even bothered to check, I had set my sights on a particular place to perform extracurricular activities in. Were I still my human self, I would have avoided such a place like the plague, but now? It was a wealth of unmined gold.

  It was a most magnificent field in which I could plant and harvest negative emotions in great droves.

  The place in question was naturally an orphanage.

  Such houses of horrors, filled with the worst of the worst, were once a rarity. But apparently, a ‘kind-hearted’ princess came and went. Deciding that the spawnlings should have a place to stay and be cared for in times of need.

  Unfortunately, she really was kind-hearted and didn’t set them up to gather the foul creatures in one place before locking them inside and burning the buildings down. What a missed opportunity… If I had been born a princess, I would have done much better stuff than this.

  Perhaps it was best that orphanages weren’t actually death traps, however. I could invite myself in at night and scare them out of their wits for profit and amusement.

  During the day, I was a silent knightess who performed good deeds, such as knocking literally every tooth out of some daylight robber. He hadn’t stolen anything from me, but criminals were the sort of people you could be violent with because everyone agreed that it was deserved retribution.

  So when I spotted an unkindly fellow of this nature, I did not hesitate to demonstrate my ability to enact violence.

  This guy’s teeth were all gone, and his lower jaw had been so deeply destroyed that he probably would never be able to utter a single word ever again. That had been caused by the one and only punch I delivered. The rest of my time was spent ripping out the teeth that hadn’t been knocked out initially.

  People probably thought that I was weird for the most part, but that did not stop a few daring fellows from trying to recruit me.

  The most persistent were a few members of a small, nearby knight establishment. They had naturally not been taking me too seriously at first. After all, the choice of wearing a nice dress over armour was a bizarre and obstructing choice.

  But after beating a few up and turning their helms into fist-sized balls of scrap, they changed their tunes and were trying to woo me.

  The establishment was small. The current leader there wasn’t even a proper elite. The last remarkable knight had passed away from old age, leaving only the rather average.

  But I would sometimes agree to go there as they had a slight quirk in their training.

  Knight establishments could only continue to exist through certain means. One was to simply be big and important. You could achieve that by having powerful backers. This ensured that the funds were present, and with the amount of trainees you would get, you were basically certain to get a few good knights, and some real elites every once in a while.

  Another means was simply to have something unique.

  I knew about that thanks to what little training as a knight I had received. Establishments were a thing mostly thanks to a way of power… Which was a variation of another way of power. It got complicated if you tried to actually make sense of it all.

  In short, there is a way of power that is colloquially referred to as ‘Orderly Troops’, or ‘Orderly Ranks’.

  Skipping the lesson about how it had come to be, it allowed one to sort of ‘cast’ an effect on a particular group. As the name implies, it was normally meant to be used on an army, and it would cause the soldiers to become stronger, more efficient, and to work together seamlessly, amongst other things.

  Knight establishments would typically be users of that way of power, which allowed their registered trainees to learn a special ‘battle art’, which was yet another way of power, and also the main progenitor of the previous one.

  It had made my head hurt a bit when I had first learned of that. Especially since the instructor was awful at making explanations.

  Thus, most establishments were known for the battle art they taught, which became their signature and identity.

  These guys were rather simplistic. Their thing was to channel inner mana into their weapon and launch it into a slash. This was a basic spell-like manoeuvre, but since most people had no future as spell casters, it was still a very good thing for a knight to be capable of.

  It was a nice little bonus and ranged option.

  Anyway, I have ‘Evolving Warrior’ while in this form, therefore, I want to learn that skill of theirs and throw slashes too. Thus, I agree to come to their establishment every so often to watch and spar with them.

  They are all rather weak compared to me. They just don’t have the physical power to keep up, and my own skills, especially in this form, were also too good for them, especially when I could more easily pick apart their styles and habits as well.

  It was a bit boring. There was no challenge, and to top it off, the usual bums were lusting after me.

  Damned weaklings who want to be caught in a chokehold by a stronger woman. I despise them!

  Real men would want to defeat me and prove their superiority. Why do they all relish in their inferiority instead?

  I can understand being a magnet for this kind, but surely, there are real men somewhere? Certainly, they wouldn’t hide from me…