Stella was getting late.

  Marcus told her to scour the outskirts rapidly, using both her horse and [Fly] to focus on searching and eliminating all of the cultists staying in the rear as a reserve.

  Now, however, she ran in front of a group of soldiers who were fighting desperately against the cultists. She, of course, swooped in to support them, eliminating all of the cultists in the vicinity.

  But, in the end, she found herself standing in front of dozens of frightened and injured soldiers, with some of them in the verge of death.

  She found herself in a dilemma. If she stayed here for too long, what about Marcus? Would his plan be interrupted if she didn’t get there in four minutes? But if she just left these soldiers…

  People are going to die.

  While thinking about that, she healed the commander of the soldiers using [Greater Heal]. After that, someone behind her tapped her shoulder.

  “Milady,” An old soldier painfully grunted, clutching a wound on his torso. “Who are you?”

  Stella stood up, finished healing their commander.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t say.”

  “You have my thanks. We were done for, but you saved us. T-thank you—!”

  “Can you still fight?” she interrupted. “Can you?”

  The soldier looked around at his injured and fallen comrades.

  “Not in this state.”

  “Then stay still. Everyone!”

  A simple idea flashed in her mind, and she didn’t waste time executing it. She’d learned her lesson earlier from Marcus, after all. She had to do what must be done and deviate from plans if needed.

  Every soldier stopped what they were doing while Stella planted her longsword on the ground. A golden glow filled the area around her as she used her healing skill on every soldier, dying or alive, and healed them.

  [Area Heal].

  It took her nearly forty seconds and a lot of her mana, but every soldier, no matter how heinous their injuries were, found themselves good as new.

  “M-my arms? How is it—?”

  “No way, I’m not bleeding anymore!”

  “I knew it was just a flesh wound!”

  The soldier in front of her couldn’t believe the sight around him. Immediately, he kneeled in front of Stella.

  “Milady, I may not know who you are, but you are our savior! Please, tell this old man what we can do for you to repay you. We shall do it at once!”

  The other soldiers surrounded her, all of them staring at her with reverence. She felt her cheeks turning red, but she cleared her throat.

  I expected this. It’s why I did it.

  “Please, clear out the rest of the cultists around town,” she said. “Can you folks do that? I have to rejoin my partner at Esterton itself.”

  “Then we shall do it at once. Everyone who can fight, stand up and fight! We have someone who can beat the cultist bastards after all! We’ll win this time, I’m sure of it!”

  “Please heal us if we get hurt again!”

  “She sounds pretty, of course; I’ll fight for her!”

  “Rookie, this is for saving that town, not for your perversions!”

  “I…I have to take my leave now,” Stella said, not wanting to waste time on these soldiers. “Thank you. There shouldn’t be many of them left.”

  As she ran back to her horse, she heard the old man shouting commands at his soldiers, and by the time she began charging to Esterton, the soldiers had already split into multiple teams and had begun attacking the rest of the cultists for her.

  They seemed to be doing it with newfound zeal too, for some reason.

  Thank goodness it worked. Now, I just need to get there in time!

  After giving his horse a non-verbal command to retreat and dodge the enemy’s attacks, Marcus charged forward, and he began clearing out the buggers.

  Without [Swift Blade], Marcus had to slowly grind down the monsters attacking him. Though, ‘slowly’ was probably a misnomer. Even with hostiles swarming him, with his maxed-out [Strength] and [Speed] stats combined, he was still chopping monsters left and right within seconds after all.

  The spider monsters themselves were around three meters tall, and their primary method of attack was to use these arms that resembled fangs, both of which held axes that would definitely cleave any man in half if hit. Even their four legs were sharp enough to stab hard on the ground, and Marcus was thus forced to dodge the things.

  Indeed, they were quite the dangerous opponents.

  But with his dual-wielded rapiers and his speed, he found a comfortable execution system. First, he’d swoop downwards to cut their front legs, then he’d use both of his rapiers to cut them in the middle. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

  The actual cultists at the rear, who were controlling their disgusting creations, all began to back off in horror as Marcus was surrounded by a mountain of corpses.

  While he couldn’t see their faces because of their masks and robes, he knew that they had gone pale, and they began to turn around and run.

  “D-damn it,” their leader cursed as he tried to regain control. “Fight back! He’s alone! You damned cowards, the gospel and our Lady demand that we—urgkh!”

  Marcus drove his rapier straight at the cultist’s chest before slicing him horizontally, cutting his body in two pieces. His blood was strange, though. Unlike all the other cultists Marcus had seen so far, it was pink.

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  On the other hand, Stella swooped in from the rear, cutting down the rest of the lunatics with her sword, all of them trying desperately to stop her.

  Marcus looked around the battlefield. All of the monsters that the cult created were now just ugly, cleanly chopped corpses on the field. Meanwhile, the remaining cultists were soon eliminated by Stella. He gave her one last command before she executed the last cultist, who was begging for mercy on the ground.

  “That one,” Marcus said. “He lives. He doesn’t seem to be one of the extra special swine, so he shouldn’t be dangerous. We’re taking him with us.”

  “Him?” Stella curiously asked, her blood-strewn sword already ready to lop the man’s head off.

  “Yep.” Marcus walked close to the nervous man before punching his face and knocking him cold. “That should do the job.”

  Marcus immediately began tying the cultist to restrain him. Then, Marcus carried the cultist to his horse, mounting it with his prisoner. Stella also went for her horse at the same time.

  Before the two made their quick exit, someone shouted from the walls, his voice shaky.

  “W-who the hell are you two? Did the king send you here?!”

  It must be the commander of the town’s defense forces. Marcus grunted in response, turning to Stella.

  “You do the talking. I suck at it.”

  “Alright,” Stella summoned her cheery voice. “Hello! You can call us the ‘White Watch’. My master here likes killing cultists, so that’s what we do!”

  “What?! White Watch? I’ve never heard of that!”

  Marcus felt himself internally groan at that. Why did she sound so cheerful while declaring her murderous intent? She literally just prayed briefly for the dead cultists earlier.

  Worst of all, she called him ‘master’. Marcus was quite explicit with her to never refer to him as someone above her, but, well, just like with her tendency to call him ‘Sir Marcus’, this might be a lost cause too.

  “Sorry, that’s all I can say,” Stella replied in a slightly apologetic tone to the town’s guard commander. “Please have a wonderful evening, and may the goddess bless you all!”

  “Hey! Wait! We have more questions!”

  Marcus and Stella ignored him.

  “Let’s just go. I still have to process this moron behind me, and I want to sleep early. It’s bedtime.”

  “‘Process’?” Stella curiously asked. “Wait, you’re not going to do something nasty, are you?”

  “Best for you to stay behind while I ‘process’ him then.”

  The two then galloped forward to get out of the scene quickly. He did use [Mass Surveillance] briefly to scan the area around him, and then, in a soft voice, he added something to Stella.

  “Hey, you did well today,” Marcus softly praised. “All of the bastards are dead because of you. You even did it all on time, perfectly.”

  While it was impossible to see through her mask, the way she almost shone radiantly even with the faint moonlight told Marcus everything.

  She must be smiling.

  “...Thank you, Sir Marcus.”

  “That looks…grisly…””

  “I told you to stay behind.”

  “Hmph, as if I’ll ever let you leave me behind.”

  “Don’t say that while sounding like a lost child, geez.”

  Marcus tossed the dead cultist straight into a pit he had dug earlier. It only took Marcus a little more than twenty minutes to extract everything from the low-ranked cultist.

  It seemed like they belonged to the ‘Ministry of Wholesome Love’, led by an elven woman named Archbishop Selena vi Lusbeck, and they were ordered to search for the perpetrators of the massacre at the Parish of Unforeseen Eventualities.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to extract any further from the man halfway through. Mostly because he had gone catatonic while muttering quotes from ‘the gospel’, and because the bastard genuinely had no answers left.

  He was too low-ranked to matter. Marcus didn’t care though, to be quite frank. Knowing the names of the bastards on his tail was good enough intel. No matter what, he’d just slice this ‘Selena’ person once she eventually finds him, including the brats she’s ordering around.

  Easy peasy.

  As Marcus began to bury the corpse, beside him, Stella began to lightly pray for the man’s soul. Yes, yes, it was quite tiring to see in Marcus’ case, but he respectfully kept his tongue shut.

  Once Stella was done, she sighed wistfully.

  “He’s just a lost soul. Thank goodness that he can rest now.”

  “This ‘lost soul’ most likely committed a lot of heinous shit.”

  “Not my place to judge.”

  “Yet you can easily kill them anyway.”

  Stella lowered her head.

  “That’s the point. The faster these lost souls are sent to the goddess’s embrace, the faster it is for her to judge them.”

  “Now you sound scarier than me. You holy folks give me the creeps sometimes.”

  Done with his job, Marcus wiped a sweat off his brow as he exhaled. On the side, one of their tied horses let off a tired whine.

  “Looks like we aren’t sleeping on a bed this time around,” Marcus groaned. “Are you alright with that?”

  “There’s a cave over there. We can sleep there.”

  “Too small.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Do I have to say everything out loud clearly?”

  “Well, I assure you, Sir Marcus, I have no problem if I’m doing it with you. Do you?”

  Marcus looked at Stella’s innocent smile. This elf was beyond ridiculously naive. Did she somehow forget that he crawled out of hell? This was why the first part of his training for her mainly involved honing her decision-making.

  Her survival skills needed a lot of work.

  “Fine.” Marcus walked away, taking out one of his rapiers. “I’ll cut up a few logs to start a fire. Then we eat. Then we sleep.”

  “I’ll help out then.”

  Within an hour, the two finished everything, and they were both at the cave, done eating. He felt somewhat awkward. Now he was just staring at the small fire in front of them.

  “It’s already 21:33 hours,” Marcus said, closing his pocket watch. “We should sleep now.”

  “Right. Of course,” Stella nodded. “I’ll…um, take that side over there.”

  “No, you take that side. It’s wider.”

  “But you’re taller than me!”

  “Doesn’t mean I’ll let you sleep on an uneven surface.”

  “For someone who acts cold and cruel, you always seem to prioritize other people first over yourself.”

  “Now, you pushed it. You will sleep over there, Stella Rosette. That’s an order.”

  “R-roger!”

  With a squeak, Stella obediently followed Marcus and went to sleep on the flatter, wider area of the cave. Marcus, on the other hand, lay on the shittier part.

  For a few seconds, there was just the sound of the crackles of fire and the horses snoring from outside as Marcus stared at the ceiling of the cave.

  That was when he heard her speak again.

  “Sir Marcus, I’ve never ever slept in the same room with a guy,” she chuckled a bit. “I always thought it’d be dangerous…”

  “You’re in grave danger right now.”

  “Yet I don’t feel like it. I feel safe!”

  Marcus rolled to his side to look away from her.

  “Right, right, I get you. Save that energy for tomorrow. We both better wake up early.”

  “Fiiine…”

  “...”

  “Hey, Sir Marcus?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Goodnight and sweet dreams.”

  He breathed out, tired.

  “...Goodnight to you too.”

  Upon closing his eyes, he was immediately dead asleep like a log. Soon, a small smile then appeared on his face as he fully relaxed.