‘A mad beast…’

That was what Nova looked like right now. With blood running down her right cheek, she faced Hannah with crazed eyes. In her hand was her Sabre. Despite being turned into a madwoman, she still hadn’t forgotten her true title—Swordsmaster.

Kicking the ground, Nova shot toward Hannah like a comet while swinging her sword.

Hannah sensed that something was wrong with Nova and immediately threw a non-lethal vial that spontaneously combusted into flames as soon as it hit the ground.

Nova stopped right as she was about to collide with the wall of flames and eyed Hannah warily.

“Come if you can, bitch!” Hannah shouted.

Of course, she was just bluffing. But she shouldn’t have done that since Nova soon ignored the wall of flame and dashed straight toward her.

“Crazy—!”

But before Nova’s Sabre could reach Hannah, a piece of rock flew through the air and hit her on the head. Nova abruptly stopped and snapped her head to the side.

There they were, Violette and Ria, picking up pebbles and throwing them at Nova.

“Over here!” They shouted.

Upon seeing Nova making a mad rush for them, Violette crouched down and covered her head in fear. She…didn’t think this through at all.

One second passed. Two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, five seconds. Even after all that time, Violette didn’t feel anything sharp piercing her body. Just…sounds of metal clashing against each other.

She slowly opened her eyes and watched as Edward and Nova fought each other.

Edward was a 4-star. He could easily defeat Nova, but he would hurt her in doing so. Of course, he didn’t want to hurt her, so he controlled his strength while fighting.

Surprisingly, someone like Nova could counter all of Edward’s attacks.

‘A thrust from brother’s spear!’

She parried it easily.

‘A swing!’

She blocked it without any trouble.

Edward frowned. With each passing second, he increased his strength futher and further, until finally, his thrust hit Nova.

However, it…passed right through her. Then, her figure fizzled into thin air. Before Edward could do anything else, he felt a sharp pain on the back of his neck and was knocked out cold.

With the strongest of them now gone, Violette sweated profusely.

‘W-Who will the Mistress attack next?’

And her question was soon answered.

Nova, sensing that no one here could fight her on equal grounds anymore, walked casually toward the weakest target—Hayan. As she was about to swing her sword at her, Hayan shivered and hid behind Ihwa.

Ihwa widened her eyes in surprise at the sudden change in position and activated [Scutum].

“Eh? Nova! Wake up! It’s your Unnie!” She shouted.

However, Nova didn’t care. She continued slashing away at the shield until it broke into a million pieces. The fight went away from a defensive one to a heated one.

Since she knew that she couldn’t defeat Nova no matter what, Ihwa used her full strength.

Their swords met each other, taking them all over the training ground. Thrust? Dodged. Slash? Parried. Block? Broken. It’d gotten so fast that no one really knew what attack was whose anymore.

For a slow fighter like Ihwa, this easily overwhelmed her.

“Come on! Don’t you recognize me!?” Ihwa shouted in desperation. If the speed had increased by even a little bit more, she would surely los—

Nova knocked Ihwa’s sword out of her hand before she could finish the thought. As she was about to finish the still-shocked Ihwa, she felt her tail fur standing on end. She tilted her head a little bit just in time for a silver kitchen knife to graze her cheek.

“Nee-san!”

Nova kicked Ihwa away and slowly creaked her head around to meet Nowa’s eyes. Her hands hovered above the first wound in this battle on her cheek and Aura extended out from her nails to become sharp claws.

She forwent her Sabre and dragged her long Aura claws on the ground, splitting the ground apart as she slowly approached the helpless child.

Nowa just stood there and stared at her sister with a smile. As she was about to be torn to pieces at her own sister’s hands, she muttered,

“[Sedate]”

Nova’s eyes quivered. Her legs felt wobbly, and she fell down to the ground. She watched as Nowa approached her and patted her on the head.

“Good girl!”

Nova’s tail wagged and clarity returned to her eyes. Immediately, she started bawling her eyes out and hugged her sister tightly.

“N-Nowa! I’m sorry!”

*

*

*

*

I was ashamed. Not only did I hurt my family, I also nearly killed Ihwa and Nowa. I distanced myself a bit away from Nowa and wiped my tears with the hems of my shirt.

"[Sedate]"

Nowa used her weird Skill again, making me feel a little bit sleepy. In fact…it felt almost like Demonic magic—

But before I could question it any further, Nowa scritched my ears and patted my head gently, making me melt in pleasure.

I accepted her caresses for a bit before distancing myself a bit from her.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Stay here for a bit, okay? I’ll check on the others.”

Not waiting for her to answer, I turned around and saw Edward and Ihwa lying on the ground, unconscious. Right beside them was Hannah. She was feeding them Recovery potions, so they’d be fine.

“Finally back, dipshit?” Hannah grumbled. “Nearly killed me there.”

In response, I muttered a quick apology before making my way to Mom.

She…shuddered as she realized that I was approaching her. No doubt she was still scared of what I’d done.

“M-Mom, it’s me. I’m back.”

Only after confirming that I was indeed in my right mind did she drop everything and rushed to hug me. Though, she was crying harder than I was before.

“L-Little one, I’m sorry, I-I—”

“No, Mom,” I stopped her, knowing what she was thinking about. “It’s not your fault.”

Mom simply shook her head and hugged me even tighter.

“No, it’s my fault. You saw how I…endangered Ihwa. I’m a coward. Always has been.” She buried her face in my shoulder. “That woman was right. It is my true nature.”

“Mom, I’m sure you d—”

“No! You don’t understand!” She interrupted me with a shout; her eyes getting a little restless. “I knew! I knew what Herald did to you in your room. I knew how he threatened you. Yet, I pretended that nothing happened!”

“Mom…”

“So, please forgi— no, don’t forgive me. Don’t forgive this coward. I’m a bad person, and an even worse mother.”

I nodded at her word and distanced myself a bit from her. Before she could get the wrong idea and get all depressed, I grabbed both of her cheeks to stabilize her head and—

“O-Ouch!”

—Headbutted her.

Since Mom was a 3-star, only I was bleeding from my forehead. But that wasn’t important right now. I let the warm blood trickle past my mouth and spoke.

“So what if you’re a coward? You’re the best Mom Nowa and I could ever ask for! A-As long as you’re here for us—” my voice turned a little bit shaky. Goddamit, I wasn’t crying! I swear! The warm feeling on my cheeks is just blood! “—it’ll all be fine. You don’t need to be the strongest or even the bravest. You just need to be…Mom. Just that.”

Hearing this, Mom broke out into tears, again. However, unlike I’d expected, she didn’t take my words for what it was.

“No, I won’t be just that.” Her voice was determined. Placing her hand on my forehead, she used [Minor Heal]. “I won’t be running anymore. Next time, I’ll protect you like the mother that I’m supposed to be.”

.

.

.

.

After that very sappy speech that, thinking back, was a bit embarrassing, I grabbed the remaining guard and asked where Ojisa was since according to Dark’s words, we could only get out if he died.

So, the Knight led us into the mansion and down to the basement, where a Gate station could be found.

It looked like a hollowed-out circle with a blue fissure right in the middle of it. Judging by the way the fissure was flickering…

“It only has enough energy to transport one person, right?”

The Knight nodded at my question. “Y-Yes. T-The Young master likes exhausting the Female mages to…” He gulped. “‘Replenish’ their Mana.”

I sighed. Of course he would! Now, the best course of action was to wait for Edward to wake up and have him go in. Since it would obviously be a while before the unfairly handsome bastard could wake up, I picked up my Sabre and sat down right in front of the fissure, guarding it.

‘I can’t be too safe.’

To be honest, all the earlier madness made me pretty tired. So, I decided to close my eyes a little to rest. But just as I felt like I was slipping into sleep—

“Eh?”

—I felt an impact on my front; almost like someone was kicking me. Before I knew it, I was on the other side of the portal and could do nothing but watch the fissure flicker out of existence.

“Y-You! You came!?”

No time to think about who’d just kicked me! I snapped my head around and readied my Sabre.

There Ojisa was, having a Wolfkin suck his disgusting genital while a man with hulking muscles watched him with also disgust on his face. Judging by the tattoo on the man and the Wolfkin’s neck, they were obviously slaves.

“It’s true that you have slaves!” I shouted.

As if my shout had woken him up from her surprise, Ojisa quickly kicked the Wolfkin to me and hid behind the burly man.

I stopped the Wolfkin from flying into the wall behind me and gently put her down. Since Ojisa could control his slaves from anywhere, I muttered a quick “sorry” and knocked her out with the handle of my sword.

Turning my attention back toward Ojisa’s direction, I saw that the slave was holding a Longbow in his hands and aiming it at me.

His body shivered as he closed his eyes and shot an arrow. Of course, it missed since he deliberately didn’t see it.

However, Ojisa wasn’t having any of it.

“Open your eyes! Shoot that bitch dead!”

“B-But—”

“[I command you!] Open your eyes and shoot that bitch dead!”

The tattoo on the slave’s neck glowed and he shot his eyes open. He kept shouting apologies as he rained arrows down onto me.

Of course, I had to dodge them while approaching the slave at the same time. Dodging the arrows was fairly easy due to my speed.

However, just as I was about to close in on the slave, Ojisa put on a golden ring and pointed his finger at me.

“[Absolute Distance]!”

Something…invisible blocked my way.

‘A shield?’

Not wanting to waste any more time, I got into a stance and used [Aura Sharpening]. The shield wasn’t sliced apart, much to my surprise.

‘What? Is it made of Mana, then? Nira!’

But no one answered.

‘Right, the Anti-Gift field. Guess I’m still inside the mansion.’

I furrowed my brows and dodged another arrow. It was…very surprising to see a shield sturdier than [Scutum]. Though, judging by the ring that Ojisa had just put on, it was most likely an Artifact.

‘Guess I’ll have to use “that”.’

Sagitta,

The Arrow that the infamous Celestial used to pierce any defense known to this world.

Up until now, I never really had reason to use it. However, it was the only thing right now that could deal with this shield.

I steadied my breathing and pointed the tip of my sword straight at the center of the barrier.

Like an Archer finding his target, let my aim be fatal.

Let the Wind carry my Arrow to its target,

Let the Wind pierce its thick hide.

“[Sagitta]!”

My body shot forward like an arrow while I pointed my Sabre straight at the center of the shield. I could feel my blade ripping through the air. However, instead of the sound of the barrier being shattered into a million pieces, all I heard was the thud of myself crashing into the shield and my sword leaving my grip, flying toward the Slave unimpeded.

Luckily, it only hit his bow and knocked it out of his hand.

“W-What?”

As if to answer my question, Ojisa laughed.

“Pffft! You really thought that this was a shield!?”

Using my left hand to hold my trembling right hand, I shouted,

“Then, what is it!?”

“Are you stupid? Didn’t you hear me shout [Absolute Distance]? I made it so that you can’t physically get close to me!”

Immediately after hearing his words, I removed one of my shoes and threw it toward him. It passed through the barrier while I could not.

I grinned.

Arrogance is the death of men, they said.

Manifesting an Aura Sword in my hand, I pointed its tip toward Ojisa.

“Last chance. Remove this barrier now, or you’ll be sliced in half.”

Of course, the pig didn’t listen to me and instead, ridiculed me. I sighed. Focusing all of my Aura and more right in front of me, I could feel myself going into Aura Depletion.

“H-Heh,” I let out a self-deprecating chuckle. “Arrogance is also the death of Foxkins.”

“What the fuck are you laughing at?”

I shook my head. Talking to a dead pig would be a waste of energy. Then, I muttered,

“[The second Movement of Cosmic Swordsmanship]—”

In a breath, I raised my Aura Sword above my head and simply slashed it down.

“—[Moon Arch]”

The Crescent Moon descended, bringing with it a silvery white light.

That light crystallized into an arc that sliced the disgusting pig in half and tore the ground apart.

As the two halves of Ojisa’s body fell to the ground, I lost my vision and slowly sank into unconsciousness.

It was a small mercy, as I wouldn’t be awake to experience the soul-ripping pain that was Aura Depletion.