“Can’t we just kill them again?”
Ileil replied calmly. In the eight years following Gro, she had already witnessed too many things beyond common sense—after all, even her own existence was the greatest anomaly: a special case of a male transformed into a witch.
The few people she had personally ended today were, on the surface, the most ordinary adventurers in Renn Town. But Gro’s intelligence was almost never wrong—these people were secretly engaging in activities that desecrated life, somehow connected to cultists.
Ileil had no interest in the specific details of what they had done; she just needed to precisely complete each hunt. As for gathering evidence, autopsies, and other tedious work, that naturally fell to Kaze’s side.
“Physical means can’t eliminate them, Ileil…” Kaze spoke at an unusually fast pace, not hiding his words as he pleaded with Ileil:
“I’ll go seek help from the church people. But before that, I need someone to help me control those monsters. We can only rely on you now—you’re the strongest fighter in the group who’s still here, Ileil!”
“…”
Ileil’s golden pupils flickered slightly. She wanted to mock him about why he didn’t go ask their esteemed leader Gro—clearly, that “Black Edge” was the one with the highest combat power. But after some hesitation, she swallowed the sarcastic words about to come out.
Revenge was indeed the entire meaning of her life, but that didn’t mean she would tolerate those cultists who toyed with life. In past missions, she had seen too many fates more tragic than death—those souls desecrated by evil god believers often couldn’t even find peace in rest.
“If it’s just working overtime occasionally, I don’t mind.” The girl sighed lightly, glancing at the twin swords placed beside the bathtub:
“Consider it repaying a favor.”
Ileil took less than ten minutes to arrive at the scene—despite her body becoming female, her straightforward style hadn’t changed at all. After simply wiping her body and putting on a light chainmail, she stepped into the rain curtain.
“What’s this smell?”
Before even approaching the confinement room, some decaying scent drilled into her nostrils. Even under the downpour’s wash, this odor remained intensely nauseating. As a witch, Ileil’s perception of supernatural auras was far sharper than ordinary people’s; this might be a side effect left from her “transformation” two years ago.
Ileil only remembered being captured by mistake during a mission that day, and when she woke up again, she was tied to a cross. When Gro appeared with reinforcements, that usually calm man rarely showed a stunned expression—he had thought he was rescuing some kidnapped noble girl, until he heard her curse in a familiar hoarse voice.
As for how exactly Ileil was transformed into a witch? That memory was blurred as if deliberately erased, and even Ileil herself didn’t know what changes had occurred in her body.
…
From inside the confinement room came the muffled sounds of blades slashing flesh, mixed with the mercenaries’ curses and some inhuman shrieks.
Ileil approached the confinement room and saw five humanoid creatures burning with black-gold flames struggling incessantly in a thorny cage. Every time those charred bodies were split by swords, the wounds would rapidly heal in the eerie firelight, while the guarding mercenaries were already exhausted.
“What are these things, Alyssa?”
She walked to the side of the female mage maintaining the spell. The other’s dark brown curly hair was soaked with sweat, and the front of her robe was stained with residues of casting materials.
“How the hell would I know? Anyway, this is the first time I’ve encountered these damned things.”
The woman wiped the sweat from her forehead, saying anxiously: “You came at just the right time, Ileil. These useless guys look like they’re about to give out.”
Even the knowledgeable old woman Alyssa didn’t know? Ileil sighed helplessly, looking at these lifeless zombies, the decaying strange aura overflowing from them.
“I got it.”
All she could do was temporarily suppress these undead monsters; to completely eliminate these cursed existences, they probably had to wait for the church’s holy clerics who wielded divine power.
Ileil gripped the hilts with both hands, the clang of the short swords being drawn slicing through the air, the blades precisely decapitating that bizarre head.
“Save your strength, Ileil. Just don’t let these things escape; they regenerate really fast…”
The female mage Alyssa reminded her from behind. The zombie whose head Ileil had chopped off only paused for a few seconds. In that brief interval—the zombie’s head reconstructed at a speed hard to discern with the naked eye, wrapped in black-gold flames, as if it hadn’t suffered any damage, repeating its previous actions.
“It’s really manual labor, huh.”
Ileil’s physical attacks had no effect. It was fortunate that these “fire people” weren’t very aggressive; otherwise, with their vitality, they might cause a big mess.
What power was it that allowed them to maintain this form and stand unyielding?
The girl stared at the leaping black-gold flames, an indescribable sense of familiarity surging in her heart. From the moment she smelled the scent, this subtle feeling lingered.
Even though this flame turned people into monsters who couldn’t live or die, the boiling blood in her body was shouting—she actually felt affinity toward this flame.
…
“How unfortunate, this pitiful form bound by hatred.”
A faint murmur sounded in Ileil’s ear, alerting her. Ileil quickly looked around, but she couldn’t find the source of the voice.
“I say… you want revenge, right? You want to break the contract your father’s killer imposed on you, right?”
The sweet voice rang in the girl’s ear again, tempting like the devil’s honey.
“I’m not interested in chatting with rats hiding in the dark.”
Ileil’s hand gripping the short sword trembled slightly; the people around showed no reaction to this sudden voice. Ileil immediately realized that only she could hear this voice.
“How cold. But I don’t mind appearing before you; I’ll grant your request.”
The flames on the “fire people” spread and expanded at an astonishing speed, finally swelling into a tsunami-like wave of fire, engulfing Ileil entirely in this sea of black-gold fire.
“Hey… Ileil, snap out of it!”
Alyssa’s pupils contracted; she watched the girl suddenly swallowed by black-gold flames, hurriedly manipulating thorns to try pulling the girl out of the fire, but the mana-formed branches were easily burned to ashes, unable to cross the black-gold fire. She could only watch Ileil get lost in this sea of fire.
…
“All right~ My dear little witch, now it’s finally time for us two to whisper secrets?”