Despite being an existence infused with life, I shared many similarities with the undead. I could not tire in any way whatsoever… Be it of body or of mind, the concept of exhaustion had become foreign to me.

  And as such, it meant that when I was holding something, being hit would normally not cause me to let go, as it wasn’t like the agony that permeated by being every waking second would be enough to startle me. When my grip was on something, it would never weaken like that of an inferior being made of nothing but flesh and blood.

  Yet… I was just forced to let go, the force of the blow was great considering it had sent me rolling several meters, but that couldn’t have been what made me drop my grasp on Maarkus, there was something else–Something that had rippled through both my physical body and ethereal body following the impact.

  That’s… Rather interesting, isn’t it? What just happened, Nara? Whatever it is, it feels like I stepped in shit with my bare foot. Utterly despicable.

  As I spoke to the little sister in my head, I seized up the one who had just dared to interrupt me amidst a most riveting game of warm wrestling. There weren’t many options for who it could be anyway… The knight that I had left up to my cute assistants to deal with had somehow managed to overcome their combined efforts to keep him pinned down through the imbuing of negative emotions.

  “Return–turn”

  I called them back, not wanting my best spirits to come anywhere close to the exorcist. He might actually kill them if given the chance. They were too valuable for me to risk that. My five adorable spectres weren’t yet strong enough to actually go up against someone with any amount of ability to harm them.

  Something was a bit different about the armoured man compared to before, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was… All I knew was that it made my skin crawl.

  Mara, it would appear that this man possesses some sort of ability, or perhaps a spell that allows him to enhance his strength tremendously, and as a side effect, it seems like it also granted a large boost to his morale, making him flare with a sufficient amount of positive emotions to disrupt your hold briefly during physical contact

  In other words, positive emotions momentarily rendered you weaker and ‘relaxed’ your grasp

  Oh… If that isn’t annoying! Positive emotions? Of course, that’s a thing! Did it really have to happen right now, though?

  “Maarkus, this mission was a disaster from start to finish. Run away and tell Lord Nebulo of our failure!”

  “...What about you?”

  The cleric spoke with a groan as he held the arm that had been forced to partake in arm wrestling. He could probably feel that the same curse I had put onto my ‘collaborators’ had begun seeping into him.

  “I’ll hold that thing back”

  The cleric seemed like he wanted to say something, but it seemed like he knew not to argue, and soon took off running into the distance…

  Damnit! This guy can protect himself against my trap. I can’t send my assistants after him as he is too dangerous to them, and as for me, there is a fat lump of steel that calls himself a knight blocking the way whilst infused with something that I am apparently weak to… I have no way to catch up to Maarkus unless I can quickly deal with the knight.

  “He–Hey. Move aside, Buddy. I am–am your lord’s sister, he would be nothing without me, s-show some respect to your true employer”

  “I don’t believe this for even a second. I was told the lord’s sister was a beautiful woman-”

  Of course, that’s what you were told. I am the woman all girls want to be.

  “-And you are the ugliest piece of shit I have ever met”

  Hoi… This guy must not have a lot of success with women, huh? In fact, it’s surprising that he is still alive with such a filthy mouth.

  “I–I’ll teach you manners”

  Grabbing two fistfuls of ash, I performed some fireworks, which didn’t fool the knight very much at all, but the sparks were enough to conceal my next move, namely, retrieving an axe stashed away in one of my deep pockets.

  In my hands, the item looked ridiculously small, and frankly, the handle was too small for me to swing it effectively, but I wasn’t after a proper weapon. I just wanted something to scrape against my metallic arm… The sparks created from the cursed ash were so feeble that they couldn’t light anything aflame, but the sparks caused by friction between my body and a sharp steel item? Definitely enough to do so.

  Previously, I had puked flammable fuel all over the knight as a distraction to instead rush at Maarkus, so the logical thing to do was to take advantage of this right now.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Even if his strength is enhanced, I strongly doubt that he can overpower me, but the positive emotion he is emitting is a problem, and I would rather not have to deal with that.

  My opponent surged at me, not even wielding any weapons, just trying to punch me in the face… Does that idiot even know that he is covered in something flammable? He should have seen it back at the cabin I burnt down. Does he not care? Or is he really just forgetting about it?

  My eyes flared up with ‘Forward Shine’ as I opened my maw and screamed. It was more difficult through the layer of positive emotions coating him, but my negative emotions were under my direct control and influence, whilst his positive emotions were just wildly flaring up.

  So the doubt I tried to sow through this usage of ‘Embodiment Of Negativity’ bloomed successfully, making the knight hesitate for a split second too long. He slowed down in his charge as he was about to slug me across the face.

  With a sudden jerk, the axe scraped across my arm with a loud, ear-gratting sound.

  Mmh, I should definitely add something like that to my repertoire of spooky noises to play at people…

  Sparks flew and ignited the knight, the man turning into a pillar of flames within an instant.

  But he still punched me across my jaw, sending me stumbling aside as the positive emotion caused me to lose proper motricity for a brief moment.

  As impressive as that act may have been, this man couldn’t keep it up as he was being cooked alive inside his armour like a crab. Made to roll upon the ground in a pitiful attempt to put out the flames, unfortunately, my sweet fuel had gotten into places that would require taking off the armour to scrub clean.

  Now, where the hell did Maarkus run off to? I saw him running away at a rather problematic speed. It was strange. When it mattered, he could actually demonstrate some athletic capabilities, huh?

  I tried to catch up, but dealing with the knights had taken a bit too long. The cleric must have used some spells to go even faster than what I had seen, as I found no traces of him whatsoever left in the woods.

  Oh well, it wasn’t like I despised him like I did my brother or the dragon bitch. He was so pathetic it was endearing, a bit like an idiot puppy trying to climb over something too tall and that would fall like a sack of bricks every time it tried.

  That backstabbing brother of mine actually sent people after me, huh? How did he figure out it was me? Did the eye colour give me away? Or is it because I stayed inside our old house for a while that he figured it out?

  This is annoying. I am working on something here. What if he decides to send more competent people? I’ll have to stay hidden until they get bored and leave, if they ever do… No, I need to enhance the security. I need better curses and better spirits.

  Nara, any chances I can get one more form?

  Whilst you technically have fulfilled a few conditions for certain forms, in practice, you are nowhere near acquiring a new form at the moment

  Mmh… That’s what I figured.

  That would be fine if, since evolving, the amount of experience I needed to gather to get a new upgrade hadn’t increased so tremendously, even though I was draining my victims for every bit of negative emotions I could possibly get from them, I had only gotten two new choices of upgrades since I had acquired ‘Energy Resilience’.

  And the first options I had gotten hadn’t been stellar. I had picked ‘Quietness’, which had greatly reduced the amount of noise my heavy body produced, which was pretty good as it allowed me to more easily sneak on my prey without having to go torturously slowly.

  But it was just that, compared to the time it had taken to even get a new upgrade, it did not feel like it was worth it.

  As for the other upgrade I got, I decided to take ‘Crushing Bite’, which, much like the resilience upgrades, could be enhanced by being put to use. Though it was proving much more arduous to improve…

  Crushing Bite (IV) - Your jaw can now clamp down with greater force

  Even after I had ripped out my maw to be able to bite down on several things at the same time, without ever stopping, several months had only elevated it to where it currently was. The strength increase, coupled with the power boost of my evolution, had proven effective against the armour of the knights, however, so that was satisfying.

  Although it was not specified, the upgrades that could be enhanced start as ‘Basic’, would improve to ‘Intermediate’ after reaching level ten, or X in this case.

  Then to ‘Advanced’, which was where my flame resilience currently was, and according to Nara, the following grades would be ‘High’, ‘Superior’, and then either ‘Maximum’ or ‘Immunity’ in the case of a resilience upgrade.

  The idea of being completely immune to flames in general was attractive, but considering that I had only gotten to ‘Advanced’ after being cooked by countless types of flames implied that it would take a long while to get there…

  As the biggest boost hadn’t been the strength of the fire burning me back when I had been put into punishment by the self-proclaimed god, but the variety of the flame types. The upgrades needed to be stimulated in different ways. I couldn’t just do the same thing forever and expect it to keep working.

  To improve my bite strength, I need to practice on a variety of materials, test new ways of biting… Not just bite at the same tree trunk constantly.

  So getting pelted by some holy energy today was welcome, as that was something new, but it was still annoying that Maarkus had managed to slip away. He had only gotten a relatively short window of opportunity, but still, he had taken off running like a speed devil.

  I guess my notoriety will spread, though, ten knights died in my forest now, surely this will attract some idiot adventurers and stupid kids to come looking for the monster or ghost that they think I am…

  But considering the odds that my treacherous sibling will send more people after me, I’ll keep a low profile and hide in my tunnels. In my sweet, delightfully small and narrow spaces~

  Yep, unless they are willing to come down into the tunnels with me, or if they are willing to blast through the ground, who can get to me if I refuse to come out? My little assistants can keep me updated and scare people on my behalf anyway.

  I’ll use that time to look into how to create viable spirits and to come up with better curses.

  I need to put back all of my traps and collect the food I gathered first, though.