YEAR 1549 OF THE THIRD CALENDAR

  MORNING

  8:55

  Whilst the confrontation between the two master swordsmen raged on, an elite knight of the Vomhargon family walked upon a scene of carnage. He had gone off on his own to take care of a group of enemy knights who had clearly been stronger than the norm. Knowing that they were a threat to many of his allies, he had naturally taken care of them.

  Unfortunately, a group of his own fellow knights had run into something even worse than a bunch of warriors stronger than themselves. When he found their bodies, they all had a singular hole through their chestplate and chest, forming a gap through which one could see what was behind.

  Their armour around the struck area had been melted, and in general, it seemed like that single strike had cooked them alive inside their armour. It was frankly difficult to tell what the thing that had killed them had been.

  He recognised this killing method… He grasped his polearm firmly. His weapon was a rather curious one. It resembled one of those round-shaped sickles, but oversized. It definitely did not look very practical to fight with. Nonetheless, he was an elite knight working for a noble family known for its great warriors–If anything, this made the bizarre choice of weaponry more worrying for his opponents…

  “I can tell that this was recent, show yourself!”

  He called out before suddenly rushing forward, narrowly avoiding an attack from above. The ground where he had been standing was shattered and melted by a savage stomp. He could have sworn the ground had been about to turn into molten lava right before his attacker stopped what they were doing and looked directly at him.

  The knight pointed his weapon forth.

  “Halini. I have heard of you”

  The woman with the burnt face tilted her head to the side slightly.

  “I have no idea who you are”

  “Then, let me introduce myself–I am Elvitius, sworn knight of the Vomhargon family. Pardon me, Miss, but I must take you down”

  He thinks… She smiled. It was hard to tell when her face was so thoroughly damaged.

  “You will make a nice piece of coal to add to my collection”

  Elvitius had not been told that she was into doing this sort of thing… It made sense, though. Halini was not nearly as well-known as Denaiel, despite them both occupying the position of enforcer for the crown of Beelmart. She didn’t even have a title or nickname.

  However, she had been active for nearly as long as Denaiel, and in some ways, she was even more notable than he was, namely due to being far more brutal in her ‘work’. Her punching holes and cooking those knights alive was how she did things swiftly and cleanly. If she didn’t have to be any of those two things, then you were in for a miserable death.

  Elvitius had heard as much as was known about her before following Salael Vomhargon into this mission. Similarly to Denaiel, she possessed an affinity for the fire element–On its own, it was nothing very important. When it came to magical elements, fire, water, wind, and earth were the most common.

  …Her affinity was way more pronounced than the norm, however… He had been told that it was strong beyond belief, and since fire mana was incredibly good at performing augmentative spells, Halini was able to easily punch through plate armour, and mere contact with her was enough to fry a person’s internal organs and, in some cases, turn every liquid inside of their bodies into vapour to the point that they would explode on the spot.

  It was safe to say that Halini was dangerous just for these reasons, but she was also a maniac, a trained warrior, and a mage. Elvitius was not facing someone he could underestimate.

  Halini bent her fingers one by one, making the articulations pop as she stared directly at the knight, before leaping off the ground, onto a wall, only to then repeat the action like some sort of pouncing beast, moving all over the place around Elvitius, leaving scorch marks wherever she landed.

  The knight let his own mana flow throughout his body, weapon, and armour. Halini attacked with nothing but her fists and legs, but it felt like he parried a weapon of steel every time he deflected one of her assaults–Fire magic, when used to augment one’s body, led to impressive bursts of power and speed, but it wasn’t a sustained improvement. Thus, he needed to strike after one of said bursts.

  Thankfully, he wasn’t struck while merely fighting in close quarters. He waited patiently before channelling a spell through his polearm. The weapon seemed to bleed, forming a layer of crimson around the blade, as he swung, the blood was launched straight at the enforcer into a long, thin flying slash.

  Halini stared at the oncoming spell and swung her flat palm right through its far duller side, breaking the slash’s momentum and evaporating the blood as a whole–Within that time frame, Elvitius had closed the distance, repeatedly striking at the woman with the burnt face, preventing her from continuing her speedy assault.

  This did not mean that the fight got better for the knight, or that it got worse for the enforcer. The right of aggressivity had simply shifted hands…

  Halini dodged with precision. Unlike her older brother, she was far less stylish in her motions, quite the opposite, in fact. She was almost animalistic and primal in the way she moved–It wouldn’t feel wrong for some people to think that she was a beastfolk with the way she was moving.

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  Nonetheless, it was efficient and far from lacking in skill. Halini used her cloak masterfully to conceal her limbs and movements, preventing Elvitius from even making a rough guess about what her next action may be. In this manner, she forced the knight to give up on attacking as much as he technically could. He had to hold back on the offence since there was no telling if she was ever going to attack instead of evading.

  In this regard, the knight was correct as Halini proved willing to go for extremely risky moves out of the blue–Going as far as grabbing her opponent’s blade to shove it away… She sliced her own palm doing this, but it allowed her to land a palm strike directly against Elvitius’s chest, resulting in a molten handprint carved into his chestplate.

  He grimaced underneath his helm. As a knight of his strength under the service of a greater noble, he was very well equipped.

  His plate armour was forged of resilient steel, which allowed for a great flow of mana through it. His gaps were protected by chainmail, and he even wore a gambeson underneath it all. It was quite stuffy, but thanks to his affinity for the blood element, he was able to use his mana to take direct control of the blood within his body, which he often used to regulate his temperature and even simulate adrenaline rushes.

  As such, he was actually more protected than most knights of his category, only beaten by those who focused greatly on their defences. Yet, Halini had just… Eaten right through it with spectacular ease. There was often a joke about very high-level knights about how, starting from a certain point, armour simply began to be useless due to the ridiculous strength of what they fought… There was some truth to it.

  However, Elvitius had never encountered this problem before. His armour had been damaged a fair bit, but it had always done its job. Right now? It didn’t feel very protective as he could feel the scalding imprint of his adversary’s hand upon his flesh…

  Of course, the blow also sent him backwards. The madwoman had focused much of her mana into that strike at the detriment of everything else–This was supposed to be a last-ditch move. Not something you did when the fight had barely even begun!

  He really was dealing with a maniac… But he understood why she may be so bold. The wound on her hand quickly cauterised and was already beginning to fade away before his very eyes.

  “Healing with fire magic? Now that’s uncommon…”

  He muttered to himself as he decided that it wasn’t worth probing for her strong and weak points. This woman wasn’t bothering with typical fight etiquette or logic. Usually, this would make someone very easily defeated, but she was cunning and vicious as well.

  Beneath all of this nearly animalistic behaviour, there was a mind thinking and calculating coldly.

  “Say, you wouldn’t be interested in working for Rootriska, by any chance? You are strong”

  She tilted her head to the side a little too much, to the point that it looked genuinely disturbing.

  “Very nice of you to offer. However, my big brother is loyal to the king. I am not leaving my big brother behind”

  “Big brother…? Is Denaiel your brother?”

  “Yes. He is the best. I love him”

  “...Alright…”

  She was giving him the creeps…

  The confrontation resumed, and it wasn’t long until Elvitius was sent flying straight through a wall and into the desk of a guest room. He glanced to his right, only to see a maid huddled in a corner with her knees to her chin.

  He rose to his feet.

  “You should get out of here, Young Miss”

  “I… I can’t… I was told to wait for my next shift…”

  Elvitius was a bit confused at first, but he was forgetting that he was in Beelmart. She was a magically-compelled slave. She was literally incapable of going against her orders. The servants who had been going about with their tasks could run since their ‘goals’ were being interfered with, and they wouldn’t suffer direct consequences as long as they didn’t genuinely try to escape the palace, but for those who were told to wait or stay put? They couldn’t do anything to get away from the danger.

  Halini stepped into the room through the hole in the wall. Immediately, the temperature seemed to rise.

  The enforcer’s eyes shifted to the maid.

  “Get out of here”

  “Y-Yes…”

  The young woman ran off.

  “I didn’t think you were so nice”

  “I like the maids. They sew cute outfits for me, and big brother said that I should be nice to people. He told me that I wasn’t allowed to kill anyone apart from intruders inside the castle unless told otherwise. I am only allowed to say mean things to the advisors. Big brother says that they are greedy fools who are easily replaced”

  …There was no cutting it. Elvitius felt very uncomfortable in her presence. It felt like dealing with a little girl who brought you a squirrel she had killed, and being forced to act like it was cute because her parents were looking and wouldn’t say anything about it.

  It made his skin crawl, and it didn’t help that her burnt face resulted in no facial expressions, and constantly, wide open eyes that never blinked and only stared.

  They clashed once more, blood evaporating as the room was flash-scorched. She didn’t even actually set anything aflame. The heat charred everything into ashes, leaving nothing for an actual fire to get started.

  They soon found themselves back in the hall where the fight had begun, the knight had been burnt several more times, and the enforcer slashed, but the latter healed, while the former simply seemed unaffected by the damage.

  “AAAAH!”

  The maid screamed in the distance.

  Both combatants were surprised. No one on either of their sides should have felt compelled to strike down a maid… But it was then that they realised that the corpses of the knights Halini had slain were gone.

  Elvitius was confused, but Halini soon understood. After all, the castle had a guest with a certain taste for both flesh and steel, so knights lying around like this must be delicacies in the guest’s eyes.

  “I hope your fellow knights know how to defend themselves, Mister Blood Knight. They are considered juicy prey by her”

  “Her?”

  “Big brother does not want her identity revealed”

  “Always about your big brother, huh?”

  “Of course, he is my favourite person and the only one who truly loves me”

  “If you say so…”

  Elvitius surged forward. This fight was not over.