Chapter 38: Is It Really This Unlucky for Its Owner?

What surged out of the black mist was nothing else but Abyssal Monsters.

It hadn’t even been half a day since she left the city, and she was already targeted by the Abyss? Even if she was a Cursed One, especially prone to drawing the Abyss’s gaze, it was too much to encounter them within half a day of setting out.

Until now, Yuuri had never experienced anything like this before.

However, these were just low-level Abyssal Monsters, nothing particularly troublesome for Yuuri at her current strength.

Her thoughts didn’t slow her movements. Yuuri’s left hand gripped the short blade at her waist. The monster’s claws slashed at her, trailing a chilling, bloody wind. Yuuri twisted aside, her short blade slicing along the monster’s body.

The blade slid in, yet there was still no feeling of cutting through flesh; it felt less like slicing through muscle, more like passing through sticky, slippery grease.

The strike wasn’t fatal. The wounded monster let out an agitated howl and lunged at her again. This time, as Yuuri dodged, her short blade swept across the monster’s head, cleaving the jet-black skull clean off.

Even headless, the monster tried to retaliate, but its body turned to ash and scattered before it could act.

She’d dealt with one, but from the black mist ahead, more twisted monsters of varying forms emerged, surging toward Yuuri.

“Tch… What a pain.”

She was here for the Silvermoon Wolf, not to deal with these Abyssal Monsters outside the city.

Her right hand gripped the pendant hanging at her chest, recalling its earlier transformation and trying to make it change back.

However, the pendant did not respond to her.

It remained a simple, unremarkable pendant, with no sign of transformation.

Yuuri could only continue to fend off the monsters charging at her, seizing gaps between their attacks to try once more to change the pendant into a longsword.

She tried channeling a hint of mana into it. The pendant trembled faintly, but there was still no change.

Something wasn’t right.

Still dodging the monsters’ attacks, Yuuri cursed internally. Why did this cursed thing break down at a crucial moment? It could transform from a longsword into a pendant before, so why couldn’t it change back now?

“If you don’t change back soon, I’ll throw you out to feed the monsters!”

After several failed attempts, Yuuri resorted to threats.

Threatening… a sword?

She must be going crazy.

Sensing a monster lunging from behind, Yuuri twisted aside and instinctively swung her right hand.

But, distracted by the pendant, Yuuri had forgotten that the short blade was in her left hand. Her right still held the cold pendant.

Damn!

She didn’t have time to turn. She could only watch as the monster’s attack drew ever closer.

In this situation, she had only one option—fire the grappling hook to pull herself away and dodge the strike.

The moment she raised her left arm, a sudden tremor surged in her right palm.

Wait—what?

No time to think. The fired grappling hook yanked her away at once, dodging the monster’s blow.

And now, where her right hand had been empty, there was a dark, lusterless longsword.

She hadn’t expected the threat to actually work.

If this sword had a sword spirit, it must be a coward for sure. Clearly an inauspicious sword that brought misfortune to its owner, yet it was afraid of threats.

If the situation weren’t so serious, Yuuri might have laughed out loud.

Now that she’d summoned the longsword, it was time for a new round.

“Teng!”

Scarlet flames burst from her palm, swiftly winding around the blade.

At this moment, Yuuri held the short blade in a reverse grip in her left hand, its cold light chilling. In her right, she gripped the flaming longsword tightly, fire wrapping around the blade, hot and fierce. Locking her gaze on the nearest monster, she heard a mechanism click—a grappling hook shot out, hitting the monster dead on and hooking its body.

The moment she snagged it, the grappling hook retracted at once, forcefully yanking the monster off the ground and dragging it helplessly right in front of Yuuri.

Waiting for it was the flaming sword slash that Yuuri delivered with a leap.

“Hiss!”

Like a hot knife through grease, the blazing sword in her hand sliced the monster clean in two. The burning flames wrapped around its body instantly, reducing it to ashes before it could even cry out.

One down.

While she swung her sword, another monster lunged at her. Now it was the short blade in her left hand’s turn to shine.

She blocked with the short blade, spun around, and brought the flaming longsword in her right hand down on the monster, fire once more devouring its body and burning it to nothing.

Quick reflexes with her left, powerful attacks with her right.

Alternating the weapons in both hands and weaving in grappling hook strikes in between, Yuuri rapidly wiped out dozens of Abyssal Monsters.

Luckily, though the Abyss’s arrival was sudden, these were still the lowest of the low.

If a higher-level one appeared, things wouldn’t be so easy.

Normally, after killing so many Abyssal Monsters, the black mist would’ve dispersed.

But this time, the black mist showed no sign of fading. Even after Yuuri cleared out one wave, another quickly emerged, as if the monsters would never end.

This was bad…

Though killing a single monster didn’t cost much stamina, it all added up. If this went on, she’d be surrounded and worn down—when her strength finally ran out, that would be her death.

Yuuri could only clear out another wave, praying that after this round, the black mist would disperse.

But the mist lingered, and monsters kept pouring out.

She couldn’t help but glance at the flaming longsword in her hand. Was this thing really so cursed?

She knew the ominous aura on it would bring misfortune to its owner, but Yuuri hadn’t imagined she’d encounter wave after wave of Abyssal Monsters within just half a day of leaving the city.

Was this thing really so unlucky for its owner?

Someone must have noticed the doubt in her eyes, because the next moment, she heard laughter.

“I told you, didn’t I? That thing’s surrounded by black miasma. But Yuuri-chan, you stubborn idiot, you just wouldn’t believe it.”

Hearing the timely, mocking voice of the Little Evil God, Yuuri, who hadn’t wanted to believe it before, now couldn’t help but suspect—maybe it really was bad luck for its owner.

It worked well, sure, but if it cursed the owner…

“Yuuri-chan~ Listen to me, just toss it away while you still can.”

She looked at the flaming longsword in her hand again, then raised her left arm and fired the grappling hook at a nearby tree trunk. The moment it hit, the hook pulled her away, putting quick distance between her and the monsters.

Even if the longsword really did curse its owner, the effect couldn’t come this quickly, could it?

There had to be another reason why the Abyss’s attack was so different this time.

Best to retreat for now—if she kept fighting here, she’d be worn down eventually.

Better to escape first and investigate the area. There had to be something behind all this.

As soon as the hook retracted, Yuuri fired again into the distance. The repeated use put extra strain on her left hand, but it let her rapidly pull away from the Abyss.

“Eh? Yuuri-chan, why are you running?”

Still using the grappling hook to gain distance, Ilith caught up, her voice as breezy as ever.

“Weren’t you fighting so well just now? Why run all of a sudden? Who knows, maybe if you held out one more round, you’d be done already.”

Yuuri shot a glare at the grinning Little Evil God and kept fleeing until a throbbing ache in her left hand forced her to stop.

Looking back, she could no longer see any Abyssal Monsters.

After firing the hook several times, she’d put a fair bit of distance between them.

For now, she’d shaken off the Abyss.

She needed to figure out what exactly had caused today’s endless tide of Abyssal Monsters.

Before Yuuri could even catch her breath, a massive, silver-gray wolf-shaped beast, wreathed in black miasma and several times larger than an ordinary wolf, suddenly leapt from the trees ahead.

She’d barely escaped the Abyss, only to run into a creature that had been corrupted and assimilated by it?

Judging by its size, it had to be some kind of magical beast. And in this forest, there was only one magical beast that matched the wolf-like description.

Silvermoon Wolf.