Hello everyone, I didn't manage to end this chapter the 31/08 :( but here it come!
Don't hesitate to leave a comment/rate this fiction and more importantly, Enjoy!
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Shina threaded down the alleys with extremely careful steps. Her ears constantly twitching as if they belonged to a bunny, investigating any strange sound surrounding her.
The sound of heavy footsteps echoed in the street, some city guards dressed in iron were checking every nook and corner of the area as the sound of their armor rubbing against their weapon alerted anyone nearby of their presence., completely surrounding her.
However, Shina didn’t look very scared. Actually, a little smile persisted on her face while her heartbeat kept beating like a drum. She looked like a little mouse being pursued by a group of cats.
“It feels like playing hide-and-seek but with a lot of people.”
While Shina felt confident about her fighting ability, she wasn’t willing to go head-on against them. Her scales had managed to block a dagger; but in the end, a dagger is just a dagger. She didn’t know if they could also block a sword or a spear, neither did she want to give it a try.
Yet this didn’t mean she actually feared a direct confrontation, in term of speed and reaction time she was actually positive on her chance of winning as long as their number didn’t overwhelm her.
Almost one hour had passed since she left her father, at first, Shina had found being pursued fun, however, this previously amusing her now started to become boring. Due to their significative weighty armor, those men lacked speed and more importantly endurance compared to the rapid and agile Shina.
When she was spotted, it was only a question of minutes if not seconds before she managed to leave them behind.
‘Should I put an end to it?’
As she was deeply thinking, the sound of an armor creaking and heavy footstep slowly approached Shina’s hiding spot.
The man who just turned at a corner of the alley came face to face across Shina who looked at him with a dubious expression.
There was no way to know what the man was thinking as his face was covered by a heavy helm, hiding the totality of his face. This made the man look like a monster made of iron, seeing one of her pursuers so closely made her feel kind of stressed as she managed to let a word out.
“H-Hello?...”
No answer came from the man who looked down at the little girl whose size wasn’t even higher than his sword. Both of them stared at each other for a moment not knowing what to do until the man suddenly started moving.
“She’s here! I need support!”
Unsheathing his sword, the man slashed while adjusting his stance to maximize the speed of his sword.
The man had no hesitation when he swung his sword. One might want to go easy when he fight against a child, unconsciously wanting to waste less energy when dealing with someone as weak as a child. But for those like him who had seen the state of the men Shina had knocked out, none of the guards were willing to treat her as a girl.
Due to her small size, Shina easily managed to dodge the incoming sword with a few sidesteps, arriving at the guard’s left side.
“*Muuuuh* You guys are impolite! Tracking a little child down in the city is something, but not even answering someone’s greeting… You are lacking manners you know?!”
At the same time, Shina furiously drove her fist straight into the man’s stomach, making him fall to the ground as the armor slightly bend.
Shina suddenly held her hand with watery eyes, carefully examining her fingers. Despite the protection offered by her purple scales, the impact of her hand on a hard metal like iron actually made her hand sore.
“Uuuuuh, it hurt quite a bit…”
Like he hadn’t felt the punch, the man slowly stood up with difficulties. Luckily for him the armor had actually absorbed most of the impact’s strength, giving him only a small bump when his head banged against the helm he was wearing. He only felt from a little dizzy after falling down.
The man coldly snorted as he observed this young girl on the point of crying.
While he was inwardly very impressed by the girl’s inhuman strength, after knowing she had no way of fighting back against this heavy armor, he sighed out of relief and confidently walked toward her.
“Surrender now, however, I can’t guarantee that you’ll leave this place alive.”
The sound of many heavy footsteps rushed toward their direction. After hearing one of their people’s scream, several guards who were surrounding the area hurriedly rushed toward them.
Surrounded by almost ten guards, the man looked convinced of their chance of catching this thief.
“Hehehe, what are you gonna do now little girl?”
Being confronted with the man’s arrogant tone made Shina look at him with a mocking expression.
“Such bullies~ It actually took ten fully armored guards and a whole hour to catch a four years old child. I am sure every citizen of the city can now sleep peaceful knowing how competent you guys actually are.”
Shina’s sarcastic laughter resonated in the alleys, most of the men’s cheek became red under their armor, glaring angrily at the laughing girl.
“Stop moving that poisonous tongue of yours if you don’t want it cut. You know the rules, give us today’s harvest and let us beat you up if you want to leave alive.”
Being robbed openly by those guards didn’t startle Shina at all, after seeing her father being ‘taken advantage of’ earlier she already knew the guards would most likely have this kind of business.
“Uuuh, what should I do?...”
“Didn’t you hear him? Hurry up and give us your harvest!”
Shina looked conflicted as she looked at the guards surrounding her with an innocent look.
“What should I do? I can’t think of a way to make them realize how stupid those morons actually are… How troublesome…”
The atmosphere suddenly froze after Shina uttered those words, not even one sound could be heard in the dark alley. Only after a few seconds passed did one of the man start laughing.
“Well, well… Such a shame guys, it looks like the thief we chased after foolishly preferred to die rather than accompany us to the headquarter and after resisting armed with a knife was killed.”
After his lips finished moving, many of the guards' eyes became bright as many “Ahhh, that’s indeed a shame” was said.
Shina looked at the guards with a slightly serious face before taking Kiel in her hand.
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“I’ll be counting on you, buddy…”
At the same moment, all the guards rushed toward Shina. Even though she was alone, no one dared to underestimate her agility which had managed to earn their respect. They knew that if they showed the slightest opening then she would successfully escape within a second.
Expecting Shina to dodge until she found an opportunity to escape, the guards surrounded her as they prepared to cut any chance of dodging their attack by waving their sword at the same time.
However, reality was different than what they had in mind as Shina did not fall back like they had predicted but instead pressed toward the previously dizzy guard who still hadn’t fully recuperated.
Before the guard had a chance to complete the movement of his sword; using the fact that the joint were less protected than others area to allow flexible movements, Shina grabbed his wrist which was still performing a swing and twisted the wrist backward.
The man emitted a deafening scream as he dropped his sword who ended up in Shina’s hand who gave him an annoyed look.
“Why are you crying... Aren’t you a man? Geez, let me give you a hand.”
Within an instant, the man suddenly stopped screaming as a white flash blinded his eyes. Only the sound of the wind blowing could be heard.
The pain which previously threw his mind into disarray had actually vanished.
When the man opened his eyes, he noticed that there was nothing at the spot which had made him want to cry; absolutely nothing… Not only his wrist, but his whole arm was gone.
“Ha… Ha… Haaaaaaaaaaa!!”
A large scream even louder than the previous one resounded, his wrist was now resting on the ground and a large amount of blood gushed out of his wound.
The previously iron sword in Shina’s sword had actually transformed. It was now as white as snow and appeared untainted, not even one drop of blood could be seen despite having cut through the man’s limb.
In the middle of the handle laid a glowing white marble. The light emanating from the marble was calm yet cold.
The sword had actually cut through his armor like it was made of cheese spread.
Using this opportunity while the men were distracted, Shina waved the sword in which Kiel had actually fused and severed a few of the guards' limbs; making at least sure she didn’t kill anyone.
In front of her sword, their armor and even sword looked like butter and didn’t even give off the slightest resistance as they were sliced down.
But before she managed to incapacitate everyone of them, the sword suddenly began vibrating, making Shina hurry up in her action and tried to take care of them all. Yet before she actually managed deal with all of them, the sword actually broke in her hand as the white marble returned to her hand.
“Ahh… The sword was too weak.”
Having only taken care of six guards, under Shina’s assault most of them had regained their mind and after witnessing Shina’s sword breaking sighed out of relief.
None of them actually dared to approach her, yet they couldn’t just back out with this amount of people injured. If they didn’t provide an explanation or capture the culpable and force that person to show his ability, they would probably be removed from the city guards.
Although she couldn’t see their facial expression, Shina more or less managed to guess how they were feeling and started taunting them.
“What are you guys doing? I am but a frail unarmed girl, why do you all look so afraid?”
Despite Shina’s taunt, hesitation could be felt as no one dared to move until a courageous guard actually charged at her.
“Give that marble to me!”
The guard who had seen Shina fuse Kiel with the sword actually lusted after the marble.
Shina took a few steps back as she carefully examined her surrounding until mumbling a “perfect” and stopped moving, awaiting the guard to come closer to her before kicking the ground as hard as possible.
“Moron~ If you want it, why don’t you try to catch me!”
As she was propelled toward the guard who tried to raise his guard too late, Shina used his helm as a stepping stone and jump toward the sky as she heard the sound of the man’s neck dislocating.
Landing on the roof of one of the building, Shina cutely stuck out her little tongue before running away; throwing a few “Morons~” as she left.
A few minutes passed since Shina ran away, the guards hadn’t left yet. Almost half of them had become disabled and needed first aid in order to survive until they reached the closest hospital.
As they were treating their comrades, an enigmatic beautiful woman slowly walked down the alley toward them.
The woman’s face was gorgeous yet devilish, like a forbidden yet desired fruit every man coveted. Her body although not being extremely developed actually possessed a bewitching charm.
“Hello everyone~… How about you come have some fun with me?”
Each and every guard including the wounded ones who were until now agonizing gulped, everyone had become quiet as they were intoxicated by the woman’s charm.
Walking toward one of the guards, the woman slowly raised her hand and touched the guard’s forehead with her finger.
A red mist suddenly filled the area as the man vanished into nothingness, leaving behind nothing more than the scent of blood.
“Everyone join me~ Play with me like you played with my daughter!”
After a few scream resonated around, everything once again becomes quite. The alley was now completely dyed red like the building had been repainted.
“What a bunch of trash…”
Mystel’s expression turned cold as she remembered how the men had actually wanted to kill her daughter, she felt like she had been too gentle by giving them a quick death.
But as she remembered the scene, a large smile formed on her face.
“Ahhh~ My daughter was so cute when she was playing around~ She looked just like her mom when I was playing around back in those days! If it wasn’t for Arsal being such a pain I would keep her for myself and go have some fun like in the past…”
She hated the idea of being forced to hide from Arsal and her Shina and having to secretly follow them, but they had made the promise not to interfere if they lost. She was already a little violating this rule by following them from behind.
Suddenly, like she was hit by a thunderbolt, her gloomy expression suddenly turned into a bright smile suddenly showed on Mystel’s face.
“I know, tomorrow I’ll introduce her to my subordinates!”