“What an awful smell…”

  I couldn’t help but comment about it aloud. I had never actually tried any of the execution clown suits on anything… They had just been funny concepts for me to pass the time. However, the heat-based one had proven to be very effective–It had proved it when it opened up and spat out a burnt, softened mass of flesh that had once been a person.

  Joffi had met his end rather rapidly. He wasn’t exactly the main subject of my ire in the first place, so I gave him a metaphorical flower and only left him to agonise for about ten minutes. That was rather merciful, in my opinion… In fact, this might have just been an overly merciful act on my part. He had probably deserved worse.

  Regardless, I had automatons shove the barely recognisable mess that were his remains down into something I had created, but I didn't quite understand why… A large furnace, which I couldn’t help but sometimes see in my dreams alongside a kitchen, and some sort of machine meant to press things down… The last one I had also recreated down here, but I couldn’t help but feel like the furnace and press were not supposed to exist in this manner.

  I couldn’t wrap my head around it, but it felt like they should exist somewhere else, and serve a purpose that was not quite… Physical? It was odd. Very odd.

  …The remains of Joffi were consumed by the powerful flames, leaving pretty much nothing behind, as I sent the clown suit to the cleaning station.

  Eleanori will definitely get on my back over this, though. She will absolutely pretend like Joffi actually mattered to her… Like she won’t just find another man to latch onto like the parasitic leech that she is.

  Mmh…?

  I heard a distant shout. Why would Medurio be yelling about anything-?

  I suddenly unsheathed my sword, deflecting a mana bullet headed for my right shoulder. A non-lethal attack, but an attack nonetheless. The one who cast this spell was nowhere to be seen, but I quickly found what had happened.

  There was a gaping hole in the roof of the elevator. Someone had just come in, grabbed Medurio, and then casually attempted to main me with a surprise attack from all the way across the room, and then simply left with the night watcher.

  Did Joffi have an accomplice nearby? I doubt it. I could just feel how afraid and desperate he was. This man had had no hope whatsoever of being saved. He had surely not had any allies nearby. Otherwise, he should have entertained the possibility of survival, right?

  …Who am I even expecting to answer, anyway?

  Since the elevator still functioned, I took it and soon found myself inside Glown’s Wonderland. My clown girls had returned to their stages and designated rest areas, so they hadn’t been around to see or do anything about that other intruder, but the traces of that person’s passage were rather clear.

  Oh my…

  There was a bit of a crowd outside, which was weird since it was night. No time for hungry customers to show up, that was for sure. I didn’t have much of a choice besides going out and greeting them at this point.

  “Can I help you with something, perhaps?”

  Outside was a whole mass of city guards–I was starting to feel like Joffi had carried more than just a tracking item. Had I said something I shouldn’t have? Had he been carrying something, sending my voice elsewhere? I find it a bit… Displeasing? I felt oddly calm about this whole ordeal. Weirdly… Uncaring, I suppose?

  “Miss Mara Maeve Maya Nebulo, you are formally under arrest for two counts of murder and abduction!”

  “Based on what evidence?”

  “You can learn about it after you come with us”

  “How about no? I don’t want to follow you”

  The guard speaking went silent… Of course he did. What was he going to do, detain me? Detain a knight? He knew that if he tried, he was more likely to end up on a roof than actually manage to get his hands on me. I am not asking for much. I just want to know on what grounds I am being arrested. Is it too much to ask for?

  “Listen… Do not make this any more difficult than it needs to be, Miss…”

  I looked up at the night sky. The moon was out tonight, and I…

  I…

  “What the fuck am I doing here?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did it sound like I was talking to you, dipshit? Can a girl not speak to the fucking sky without being interrupted?”

  I had known for a while now, but in the belief that it had to do with Leton’s death and the subsequent mess it had caused in my life, I had ignored it, however… Something was wrong with me. With everyone. With everything.

  When I looked at certain people, I couldn’t help but see them differently and ask myself nonsensical questions… And when I tried to remember the past more clearly, I would feel like I was looking at the memories of someone else, blurry, odd memories that felt distant despite supposedly being my own.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  This isn’t right. What the hell is a Nightmare Trial, and why do I feel the need to create one? Why do I struggle to see Poppy, Annie, Gigi, Nessa, and Elowen as the grown women that they are? Why do I expect answers to questions I ask inside my own mind? Either I am going insane, or the world around me is insane.

  “...Hey, any idea what A.R.DL means…?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Sorry, that was a weird question to ask. I should just get to the point… My instincts have never failed me before. So I’ll just follow my guts, as foreign as they may seem right now”

  “I don’t understand, are you-”

  The guard was unable to finish his sentence. I swung my sword, and his head came rolling to the ground, his helm falling off his disembodied head. Soon followed by his body, as the other guards failed to realise what had happened for a second.

  I don’t know what I was absorbing right now, but I was definitely inhaling something emitted by everyone around me. Was it their fear? Was it something else? I don’t know, and I probably can’t know for sure anyway. So I shouldn’t bother asking.

  My guts were telling me to do something, and right now, it felt like my instincts were speaking louder than ever. I didn’t know why, but they demanded a bloodbath. Something within me wanted, or perhaps required, slaughter to be satisfied, and I felt motivated to oblige.

  The guards reacted to my action, but they were just a bunch of regular city guards–I had no idea whose bright idea it had been to send them to arrest me, but it seemed like they had assumed that I would comply. Which is what I would have normally done if I weren’t feeling compelled to follow my most primal guidance.

  With my knight training and naturally superior physique, I turned them all into hacked bits of bloody meat within a minute. I hadn’t gotten the occasion to actually flex my strength against real targets in a very long time. My sword–The one Maarkus had gifted me on my birthday–Moved without restraint, but I kept feeling like I could do more than just swordsmanship, martial arts, and that one establishment skill I had painstakingly learned.

  …It felt like my knightly self was capable of more… And why did biting seem like such a normal idea to me right now? Was I a praying mantis? I seemed convinced that I could bite people in half with just one big bite.

  How bizarre. I must be correct, something is off about… Something.

  I walked away from the massacre my own two hands had committed. Eleanori should be at her home, right? It was about time that she experienced some punishment–Not measly divine punishment… Punishment at my hands. Leton wouldn’t want me to do this. He wouldn’t want me to do something that would ruin my life, but…

  Oh, Leton… If only you knew the things I had done for you. You were smart enough to figure it out, but you trusted me just too much to even put me into question. For that, I am most grateful that you didn’t have to be hurt by my actions. I knew well that you and I weren’t the same at all… Or rather, we are the same, but in completely different ways.

  Heh.

  Two counts of murder, and one count of abduction? That’s far from it. There were plenty of people–If they can even be called that–Who thought that they could mock and bully my brother.

  I do not accept any of it. You can slander me. You can threaten me. You can stab me… But touch Leton? I suppose it is some sort of natural instinct as the big sister, but I found it utterly unacceptable for such things to be directed toward my brother–I certainly overreacted in some… Probably most cases… But the result was always achieved.

  They disappeared. I made them vanish.

  Leton is gone now, but I feel the call to kill again. Not particularly to avenge him, but if I was going to be killing anyway, I might as well take out the trash, too.

  “Miss Nebulo! Stop right here!”

  “Hello, Benait. Where is your sidekick? I doubt you would be stupid enough to approach me alone. Perhaps the halfling whose half of her bodyweight is concentrated in her chest is around as well? I bet she’s the one who tried to fire a mana bullet at me earlier”

  “Miss Nebulo! Surrender!”

  “Buddy, I just turned a dozen people into slices of meat. The punishment for that is death–I would be more than just an idiot to turn myself in instead of trying to resist”

  “Do you not feel any remorse?”

  “No. I feel quite ecstatic, actually. You should try butchering a bunch of weaklings one day. It is great self-care for the psyche”

  A blade of mana flew from the darkness of a nearby roof, which I dispelled with a lazy swing.

  What a great sword, it really blasts through mana with ease. Just lovely.

  While I was busy parrying a ranged attack, Benait closed the distance, attempting to hit me with his blade.

  Benait wasn’t weak overall, but there was a reason why he was still a city guard despite his talent. He had the means to become a proper knight one day, but his loyalty to Tolten was holding him back from truly committing to becoming one.

  I blocked his strike, parried it, and subsequently smashed the pommel of my sword into his jaw, sending him stumbling backwards, dazed by the heavy blow.

  “I think you’re a pretty good guy, even if a little stupid, so I’ll let you off lightly”

  I deflected another strike and proceeded to stomp down on his left knee, bending the articulation the wrong way with a loud, satisfying crunch before backhanding him to the ground.

  A flurry of mana bullets was cast my way as Jupo revealed himself out in the open.

  I sidestepped the barrage of projectiles with ease–It was almost endearing that those two thought they could do something to stop me…I lunged toward Jupo, rushing right past him as my sword lashed out in one swift motion.

  Here. I always knew that he was missing something… I guess ‘missing’ isn’t the right word in this case, though.

  The young mage-blade’s left arm fell to the ground as a fountain of blood burst from the fresh stump–Jupo cried in agony as I took this occasion to deliver a high kick directly to the side of his head, knocking him out on the spot.

  “If you work on yourself a bit more and lose that baby face of yours, I might just consider you a man of interest”

  I casually stepped over his unconscious body–This was one of the problems with young men who had begun energy manipulation early on. If they were actually good and made progress, they would accumulate strength and start ageing more slowly than other people without becoming any more rugged since they practised a way of power that didn’t require physical training or confrontation… Thus, they would keep their youthful face and not look nearly as manly as they should be.

  It was a real problem, in my opinion at least.

  Anyway… Is Binibelle not around?