It had been a week since Sirus came back to his home continent. Compared to his first day accompanying Luna, the others had been relatively dull as he attended to his duties as the second son of the Karloman patriarch.
Luna had run off to god knows where while claiming she was going to 'kill bad things' and 'train her new amazing toy'. He hadn't seen her since.
Sirus didn't mind that much. Sure, he was a bit lonely and missed her antics, but he really needed a rest from the craziness of the crazy catkin. Especially after she kissed him, which he still wasn't sure what to think of.
He had become quite the introvert because of his looks. The only people he felt like he could truly act as he wanted with were his family, and sometimes even with them, he found it difficult.
He had been seriously traumatized as a child by the constant harassment of adults and children alike, all of whom tried to get in his pants or to get him in their pants. Of course, not everybody was a sexual predator, but Sirus truly made it difficult on himself. He was basically a walking aphrodisiac.
Back on the ship and island, he had genuine fears of being raped by Luna. Even the crew and Ravens weren't off the dangerous people list, but he had investigated them thoroughly beforehand so he could somewhat trust them.
However, Luna never really did anything bad. At worst, she played some childish pranks on him, and even those were just that, childish pranks that didn't really harm anyone. Unless she was in a bad mood, in which case the death risk was quite high, but she never did those on Sirus.
It might have been because she was immature to a fault, or simply too powerful to care. Or maybe she wasn't used to it. Sirus certainly had no idea, hell, even now after he had known her for months, he still struggled to understand how her head worked.
Sirus shook his head as he looked out of the window, watching the busy street. After a moment, he turned back to his desk, where a literal pile of paperwork sat.
It was nothing compared to the work his brother and father had to do, but it was still a lot for him. Gathering his nerves, he got back to work.
Meanwhile, Luna was speeding around the world, trying to find something interesting. She had even visited this weird place called the 'Capital', but she didn't really like it. The humans there were bad, especially those in shiny clothes or those in armor.
She had seriously debated whether to kill them all. However, remembering how much 'work' Sirus had to do after she had single-handedly wiped out the entire slums, she decided not to. She didn't want to his butt-load of work, after all!
However, that didn't stop her from visiting this 'Capital'. It was truly fantastic, buildings decorated in amazing artwork, some reaching up to 30 meters in height.
She awed at all the shinies in them too. She really wanted not to, but eventually couldn't restrain herself and ended up 'borrowing' all the shinies from a whole bunch of buildings.
She ran all the way back to Sirus and hid them in her room, along with a couple other piles of shinies. Although, since her room was also technically Sirus' room, it didn't take long for him to find her shinies. At which point he took and put all of them in a top-quality storage ring, which he left on the bed with a note saying "Don't cause trouble"
When she came back with another pile of shinies she 'borrowed' from some loving merchants who were really eager to give her all their stuff after she slaughtered a whole bunch of trolls using her new 'toy'. They even asked her if she could, to meet them again at their office at some random location. She had forgotten it almost immediately though.
It really didn't take long for word to travel across the country, and into neighboring countries too, about a strange blur that caused chaos wherever it went. Some claimed it to be a monster born in the deepest parts of the abyss, while others praised it as the shining angel of goodness and love.
Both of those kinds of people were idiots, thought Luna as she still took their Shinies, now not even having to travel back to Sirus' place to store them!
Eventually, she decided to stop after she noticed how many armored people were running through the streets now, placating the masses and searching for the 'unholy thief'.
She could easily continue, but she really didn't want to cause more annoyances to Sirus. She didn't like it when Sirus was sad, because it also made her sad for some reason. She quite liked it when he was happy though.
Thinking back on the events a week ago, Luna's face turned slightly red as she stared at the sky above while lying down on the roof of the tallest building in a small village, likely a church.
She still had a lot of trouble understanding the language, but she had gotten much better. She could easily carry out a conversation, even if her word usage and choice was a bit odd and her syntax could really use some work.
Not that she spoke with anyone beyond some nods or smiles, of course. She'd been collecting information about this kingdom and it's culture the whole time she was here, and it was honestly much easier learning it by herself like this than listening to Sirus lecture. It was hard to listen to him when all she could see were his beautiful eyes.
She could hear basically anything and everything tens of thousands of km around her, even further if she strained. Hence, it wasn't hard for her to hear the thundering of hooves as hundreds of knights in golden armor came pouring down from the sides and into the village.
Luna briefly wondered whether they were bandits, but seeing their leader talking politely with the village mayor, she clenched that thought. Not that she would care if they were bandits or not, but at least she could have a reason to carry out a massacre to further improve her new toy in battle.
She huffed in annoyance and looked at the knight leader. Based on their conversation, he was likely a commander of the Royal Guard, somebody with quite a bit of political power. She wondered why such a person would be here, but then she realized her general lack of understanding of how politics and anything more complicated than 'kill it until they die' worked, so she gave up.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Suddenly, her ear perked up and she flashed a grin. Perhaps a massacre wouldn't be so out of place after all?
A second later, a shadowy figure appeared behind her and slashed at her, completely silent. Luna looked like she hadn't seen the man coming, or at least until her hands flashed and the poisoned dagger that was supposed to kill her disappeared.
The shadowy figure quickly retreated to the other side of the roof and blew a whistle by putting two fingers in his hands. Hearing the loud noise, the leader at the bottom looked towards Luna and the shadowy figure, and Luna could see his face hardening.
After a small 'sorry' to the mayor and a command to his soldiers to defend the village, he jumped up and landed all the way up at the roof where the wannabe assassin and Luna stood and laid respectively.
He cautiously observed Luna for any movement, and then whispered at the Assassin, "You failed."
The assassin, obviously pissed, hissed back, "No shit Sherlock. What did you expect?"
Luna looked at the two men and yawned, her sharp teeth flashing a creepy image. She then got up and stretched slightly before facing the two men and smiling.
"Hi. Me not happy see you, but me happy you come to play. I like playing, but others no like playing. No know why, me very funny. And cute. Me cutest." Luna winked at the two men, and before they could say anything, she suddenly frowned and pointed at the general.
"You important, no?" She demanded. The general looked at her with a raised eyebrow and didn't answer as he raised his sword and shield.
Luna's frown deepened. "You no answer? I ask question. You answer. Or I kill you, family, friends. I kill you and kill you and kill you again. And then I break dead body."
A ferocious aura erupted from Luna's body. So ferocious, in fact, that it straight up made the ground tremble, and the building they were on almost gave in. The general and assassin looked at her with shock as dark clothes rolled and seethed in the sky, while literal cracks appeared on the ground. Glass shattered, children screamed as people ran.
Luna's body suddenly seemed so much more terrifying than before. Her eyes looked like an endless abyss, rivers of blood flowing through them. To the two men in front of her, who had already backed up all the way to the end of the roof, she looked like a demon god.
Just as quickly as this phenomenon appeared, it ended. However, the crying children and broken ground was proof enough that whatever happened was no mere illusion.
Back to normal, Luna smiled at the man and, without any resistance from him, grabbed him by the neck and dragged him away while the assassin was paralyzed in fear, his instincts screaming at him not to make a sound.
"Me no likey not knowing. Me like knowing, is fun and is good. Sirus say I no cause trouble, so I no cause trouble. But if trouble causes trouble, then I not causing trouble, trouble is causing trouble. So I kill trouble until it dies. And then kill its family and friends. It is good way to make trouble not take Sirus away." Luna nodded to herself, laughing internally as the man trembled in her hands. She had already stripped him of all armor and weapons without him being able to resist at all.
"Now, troubly human. Tell cute lil' me who send you, so I have excuse to play..." Luna whispered into the poor man's ears. He woke up from the trance and grit his teeth before shouting, "I will never give away that His Majesty sent me here!"
Luna frowned, "Why not? I no kill you if you tell. Pinky promise." She said, casually setting the man down and crouching in front of him, following him as he scuttled backward until he hit a tree.
Unable to run anymore, the general yelled, spitting all over her face as he shouted. "My loyalty to His Majesty is unsurpassable! I will not tell you it was His Majesty that sent me to scout this area for your presence, and that it's only thanks to the court mage that we knew where to find you!"
Annoyed, Luna wiped the spit from her face and, after thinking for a moment, slapped the man, slamming him into the ground. "Tell me or I do bad things to you. Like killing you."
Struggling to get up, the general spit a mouthful of blood as he glared at the catkin in front of him. "Are you really this stupid? Good lord."
The catkin puffed her cheeks and glared at him. "Me not stupid! Me really smart!"
Gritting his teeth as he felt his eyes burn at the pure stupidity of Luna, the general grasped his head in his hands as he said. "Idiot... It was the king, dumbass... Now I'll never get a chance at being promoted..." The general sighed.
Luna perked up, curiously. "King make trouble? But king important. I no can kill him, or Sirus mad. Stupid general is big useless!"
The general felt like a thousand swords stabbed into his heart at once, as the single dumbest person he had yet met in his life called him dumb and useless.
"Just kill me already..." The general sighed, giving up. He raised both his hands and waited for death.
Luna frowned at his gesture. "General more useless than I thought."
The general gave her a look as if she was speaking another language. Sighing, Luna began speaking.
"Live! Struggle like a madman, kill bad things. Destroy trouble, break enemies. If world pulls you down, break the world apart. If chains tie you, kill chains and then kill family and friends of chains. Ants fight giants and survive. Humans fight, humans live. Humans and ants and me all same, we fight to live. No point in living? Point of living is living. Is point of living good at killing things? No. Kill things with sharp sticks or hit them until they die. Surrender? Surrender is good, if live longer. But ask for death? You no family have? No friends? No desire? Stupid general is stupid. And useless." Luna said, her simple words and ideas hitting the general like a raging river.
He stayed silent for a while before sighing. "You're wrong, but you have a point. Please let me live?"
Luna nodded with a happy smile. "Ok!"
Done with all the bullshit of the world, the general simply got up and walked back to his soldiers, who were rushing everywhere, trying to find him. Of course, he had been brought all the way out into the surrounding lands, so despite their efforts, they would never have arrived in time.
As his soldiers ran to meet him, he pushed them off for a bit. Looking into the sky, he yelled, "Ma'am, if you're looking at us right now, please tell my family I'm not dead."
Although he received no answer, he didn't mind as he recalled the wannabe assassin and got back on his horse, now armorless and weaponless.
Meanwhile, in the king's castle.
The old woman, along with a whole bunch of other mages all looked at each other with downcast eyes. "So... Not even our strongest general and best assassin can do more than beg to be allowed to live?"
A general murmur, incoherent and unorganized ran through the group of mages. After a couple minutes of discussing amongst each other, a couple mages stepped forward.
"Ma'am, I believe that negotiation would be in our best interest. From what we have investigated, that creature isn't particularly interested in conquest nor destruction. Even if we have to pay a hefty price, I think that getting in its good graces would be our best course of actions."
Another mage, much younger than the previous one, also spoke up afterward, looking at the old woman with a disdainful gaze. "How could we ever hope with monsters? Filthy animals, all of them. Our only hope is through summoning a hero, even if it means we have to pay a crippling price."
A whole bunch of other ideas were discussed, but the main two ideas were always the same - cooperate or summon a hero.
Shaking her head, the old woman finally announced. "It's not our duty to decide. Report our findings to the king, also, send someone to the Karloman patriarch. Ask him to meet with me as soon as he can."
WIth curt nods, the mages dispersed and all went about their separate ways, while a couple lower-ranking ones went to write up the reports.
Situation? Disastrous. Danger? Possible annihilation. Enemy? Unknown, mostly. But hey, at least the old woman had baked some cookies, and they were on sale!