The wet, mushy sound of chewing resounded through the clearing, annoying Katyusha. “Can you eat quietly, bastard?” She shot a venomous glare at her partner.
Kenji gorged the savory meat with more vigor, purposely producing more noise so as to annoy her even further. He knew what she wanted him to do, of course, but he found it funnier to do the exact opposite. The crude method of eating inadvertently spilled oily fat everywhere, Katyusha took a step away from him.
“Hmmph!” Her words ignored, she waved her hand, producing frost wind that covered the meat that he consumed, turning the succulent hot meal into a thick block of ice.
“Fucking-! You just ruined my breakfast.” Kenji threw a bloody leg bone with some traces of frozen meat. His goal was to ruin Katyusha’s day or at least, dirty her kimono. However, the woman is used to his childish antics. Clank! The frozen, greasy bone was deflected by a crystalline shield that flared to life for an instant before fading away. In the first place, all rank 1 mage archetypes possessed passive defensive shields covering them at all times, his antics are mild annoyance at best.
Katyusha rolled her eyes, practically at instinct at this point. Then, her eye twitched, and she immediately turned to face a spot that was roughly in the opposite direction of the village. “I thought we'd stayed far enough from Mira village?”
Noticing the boy entering his perception range, Kenji stood up and gazed vaguely towards the boy’s direction. “Trying to pinpoint where he is feels like trying to grasp water. He’s somewhat similar to our captain, a person whose presence can quickly be lost in a crowd.” He then glanced at Katyusha, expecting an answer from his conjecture.
“I thought so too.” She confirmed. “But our captain is a special case due to her condition. In any case, should we spy on them? Our anti-detection methods should-” Katyusha paused her words as she and Kenji felt the young boy stop moving, before abruptly changing direction.
Originally, the young boy’s trajectory would’ve passed near their campsite, but now, he was making a detour so that he wouldn’t be within 1 kilometer circumference of their location.
Katyusha and Kenji glanced at each other, communicating via gaze alone. With a nod from Katyusha, both of them quickly rushed towards the boy, curious about how he was able to detect them. After all, they are elite Hunters with rich experience in hiding their presence from beasts whose senses are sharper than humans.
…
“!!!” Mordred suddenly halted his steps as he sensed a pair of dangerous presence heading towards his way. Now that he has become a mid-stage rank 0 soul magus, his senses are significantly sharper than when he was a mortal. As a scholar of death, he is extremely sensitive to danger and killing intent. However, despite the fact that the incoming presence is dangerous, it bears no killing intent. Thus, he decided to take a wait-and-see approach.
“...” The two figures suddenly arrive before him.
The left one is a male whose upper body is exposed, showcasing his muscular, wheat-colored tanned body. The man’s exposed skin is filled with tattoos with geometric patterns. At a glance, it was obvious that the tattoo’s purpose is as body runes used to augment his physical body.
As for the right one, she is a foreigner whose beautiful face has a different charm compared to the typical facial features of the Hartina Kingdom’s people. Her long silver hair flows downwards with the shades and motion of falling snow, whereas her sleeveless kimono is reminiscent of a certain other member of their crew, though it highlights her curves rather than obfuscating them. Following her arrival, a cold wind blew, lowering the ambient temperature around her a few degrees.
“From the direction of where you’re going, you should be heading towards Mira village.” The male muttered nonchalantly with a trace of amazement. “Introduce yourself, kid. Not everyone has the balls to camp out during the night and return early in the morning like you.”
“Hey, be nice. Not everyone is tolerant of your face.” The woman scolded before half bowing her head to introduce herself. “Hello, my name is Katyusha, and this is Kenji. We are members of Twin Helix. I hope you don’t mind my friend’s rude behavior. He suffers from an incurable disease known as retarded. It’s chronic, so please don’t take his words to heart.”
“I- un! It’s alright.” Mordred’s body shivered as frost started to manifest on the surface of his skin, a symptom of ice-path radiation.
“My, I apologize for that, my bloodline is too pure.” Katyusha closed her eyes, seemingly activating a suppressing method before the coldness radiating from her body slowly retracted.
“Why are you suddenly acting nice in front of a kid?” Kenji raised his eyebrows, puzzled at how his vile-tongued team member suddenly turned into a proper lady. He, in his blissful ignorance, chose not to remember that her potty-mouthness was a consequence of his existence within her general vicinity.
“Mind your manners.” She replied before striking a conversation with Mordred once more. “Can you please introduce yourself and tell us why you are going towards Mira village?”
“My name is Satoru, I’m going to Mira village because my home is there.” Mordred states matter-of-factly.
Kenji begins to mutter after realizing who Mordred is. “Wait, aren’t you the grade-S spirit talent that vice-captain Sumire talked about, the one who asked us to mur-”
“Watch your fucking mouth. There are some things that shouldn't be said even if you know it.” Katyusha spiked him with her elbow in his lower abdomen, which only provoked him into shrugging his shoulders. Recalling her attention back to Mordred, she tried to pry deeper. “While you walked, did you sense us?”
Mordred raised his eyebrow. “It seems like I’ve caught your attention. I wasn’t aware you were other humans, though. After my spiritual force was awakened, I gained the ability to sense danger from afar.” He lied with a straight face. His detection ability is the result of his mid-stage rank 0 soul cultivation, it has no relation with his spirit. “I thought that there’s something dangerous in that location, so I better not approach that spot. I’d never thought that I would be garnering your attention.”
Kenji and Katyusha communicated with their gaze. “It seems like your extreme spirit is related to detection. It’s no wonder you dared to stay the night outside the safe protection of your village, or perhaps, you couldn’t stay there because you knew there would be troubles?” Katyusha deduced. “We were having breakfast before planning to rejoin our team in your village. Would you like to join us?”
Mordred acted surprised, but the foreigner woman seemed nice enough. He had anticipated his meeting with an additional two Twin Helix team members, but he didn’t expect it this soon. “Sure!”
While they were walking towards the campsite and having a casual conversation, Mordred is telepathically conversing with the two demons inside his phylactery.
“Your Majesty…” Asmodeus whispered. “‘There are some things that shouldn't be said even if you know it’, that’s not a sentence typically muttered by a random rank 1.”
“I know.” He hushed her. “That woman is trained, or at least knew about karmic backlash. Did you sense what I sensed?”
“Yes.” The demon king confirmed, but did not go into detail. “Things are getting interesting now.”
Being left out from their conversation, Astaroth inquired. “What does your [Sudden Inspiration] tell you, Your Majesty?”
What she received from the demon king was silence. Perhaps, if Asmodeus were to possess a physical body, she would mysteriously smile without muttering a single word.
“Your Majesty?” The archdemon turned her inquiry towards Mordred.
“She probably barely picked up anything.” The magus answered while still physically conversing with the two hunters. “But having the ability to misguide or hide from Asmodeus’ [Sudden Inspiration] which allowed her to know things by somewhat ignoring the law of causality means something, don’t you think so? If you understand what I imply or deduce the real reason, I suggest you keep it to yourself or erase your own memory so that you’re not implicated in the karmic backlash. There are some things that mere knowing it makes you susceptible to karmic retaliation, nevertheless mentioning it.”
“...” His words make her even more curious, but even the somewhat child-like Asmodeus the chatterbox is unusually quiet. If Astaroth failed to heed the warnings of two beings who once reached the realm of sovereign, then her being a split soul of a rank 5 epic must be a fluke. Thus, she followed Asmodeus’ silence and did not put an effort to know more.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
…
After having been fed with rank 0 cultivator’s food for breakfast, Mordred returned to Mira village, accompanied by the two hunters.
“Yo Sakuya, I heard you’re a simp for this boy. I thought you like older, muscular men… Don’t tell me, you’re a shotacon?” Kenji faked a shocked expression the moment he met Sakuya who seemed to be waiting for Mordred to return. Since Mordred was brought around by Kenji’s arm on his neck, freedom is basically taken from him.
“It’s incredibly unfortunate that the heavens haven’t smote you yet. You’re still annoying as fuck.” Sakuya snatched Mordred from the clutch of Kenji. The man has been talking nonstop that even Mordred, with his high tolerance for bullshit due to his upbringing as an expert of infiltration, subterfuge, and assassination, is fed up. The topics of his nonsense are literally anything. Ranging from random trivia and useless facts, to completely niche topics that only specific people exposed to the most vague and uninteresting cultures could understand.
Strangely, though, Mordred understood the ‘niche’ topic that Kenji kept on uttering because they are somewhat related to Galatreon’s culture. Perhaps, there’s someone in Twin Helix who’s a native of Galatreon.
“Has Katyusha told you about Kenji? I know he’s a pain in the ass to deal with, so don’t listen to his nonsense. If our captain doesn’t favor him, he would already be dead four years ago.” Sakuya asked while leading Mordred by the hand. “The nanoms is affecting his intelligence, I swear.” She whispered under her breath.
‘Nanoms?’ Mordred was surprised, not expecting the word coming out of her mouth. However, considering she’s a magic machinery enthusiast, it shouldn’t be strange. He wants to know more, but if the village crackwhore’s son knew anything about magitech, it would probably draw eyes. He kept his face straight as if he didn’t hear the last part of her sentence. “I’m sorry that I’ve returned rather late, has the Awakening started yet?”
“How can the awakening ceremony start before we have the main character?” Sakuya scoffed. “The favor of a future-Paragon is far more precious than these mortals. If they forced me to start the awakening ceremony without you, I’d rather burn this village to the ground.”
“...” Mordred was at a loss for words as he realized that despite her reasonable demeanor, Sakuya had a possessive streak and didn't tolerate others encroaching on her interests. Basically, she probably would burn the village down were that to happen.
He resolved to walk faster.
While they were being led into the village’s square, Mordred saw even more people than than the previous morning. According to the number of unfamiliar faces around, Mordred deduced that these people should be from neighboring villages, they are gathering in Mira village to see who the ‘grade-A’ spirit talent was. Naturally, when Mordred revealed himself under the protection of Sakuya, he became the center of attention.
Before they arrived in the square, they were blocked by a woman whose body literally exuded a lascivious charm, followed by several Mira village elders whose body radiated the suppressed aura of rank 1. The woman seemed to share a lot of resemblance to Satoru, Mordred’s mortal shell.
“Satoru, you haven’t been returning home lately.” She spoke, her eyes glinting with a sense of dominion, and of a short temper to defiance.
To others, the presence of this woman coupled with the village elders would make them shiver or pressured so that they caved in to their demands. However, in the eyes of Mordred, her presence is a karmic burden that should be quickly eliminated before it becomes a cancer. “Mother, it is upsetting to see that you are alive and kicking. I thought you were in a speedrun to collect STDs.”
The people in this village may not understand the meaning of ‘speedrun’. If not for being exposed to Kenji’s nonstop chatter, Mordred wouldn’t have realized that word exists in this world.
‘Oh, my…’ Sakuya, who heard Mordred’s comeback, barely suppressed a bout of uproarious laughter by covering her mouth.
Nevertheless, despite not understanding the meaning of speedrun, they understand the context. The village elders frowned, but Satoru’s mother revealed a snake-like smile, as though someone had just made her day. “Little birdie has been learning how to talk back…” She sneaked a glance at Sakuya, subtly accusing her with her gaze.
To everyone else, Sakuya suddenly took on a rather still, blank expression, as though she were acting dumb on purpose. In reality, however, she was desperately trying to maintain decorum by avoiding laughing in her face. This farce is amusing because she knew the conflict between Satoru and her mother stemmed from the mother’s own greedy, manipulative, and exploitative behavior towards basically everyone around her. However, her ego and ambition have somewhat blinded her vision, making her throw away things she shouldn’t have.
Since it was revealed that her son of all people had grade-A spirit talent, she wanted to pick up the trash she had thrown away.
If this were any other place with higher exposure to better-quality women, a quasi-cultivator like her wouldn’t be able to dictate the village elders like this. In fact, she would’ve been killed, no questions asked. To Sakuya, the real tragedy here is the village elders’ poor collective taste in women.
“It’s alright, mother. I know you’re now regretting being a failure of a mother for me… No, perhaps you’re regretting being a failure of a human being. Now that my talent is known, you want me to return being your son, even though you’ve been working me on the pig sty to the bone like a slave.” Mordred taunted. “Your maternal affection is worthless, I don’t need it at all.”
The crease on Satoru’s mother’s forehead twitched. “Return to the house, I won’t allow you to take the next stage of the Rite of Passage if you keep behaving like this. You are my son: my property. What I decide is of no concern to others.” She nudged, signaling the elders behind her to move towards Mordred. Following her command, they began encroaching towards the two.
“Mother, you need to understand that not everyone is delusional enough to accept your bothersome demands or is completely helpless in fighting against you.” Mordred took a step back, proudly cowering behind Sakuya.
The red-haired Mordred’s human shield finally produced a gentle laugh. “Are you all okay with this?” She inquired about the village elders. “Satoru is under my protection. If you make a move on him, then I’ll simply lead my team to fuck off from this shithole. I couldn’t care about the mission of the Association as long as I can get him away.”
If one were to look at numbers alone, the seven rank 1 elders might be able to overpower Sakuya. In fact, they were sure that if Sakuya or Twin Helix were to make a move on them, the whole village would retaliate. After all, it would seem like Sakuya is stealing talent. If this matter were to be reported to the Hartina Kingdom’s Nine Master Clans, they’d probably send personnel or perhaps pressured the Association to punish Twin Helix.
However, when Sakuya gave out threats, a sharp tingling sensation came from another direction: the armored Shirogane. The silver-haired woman who’s been quietly observing from afar has started to slowly unsheathe her giant katana, her whole being excluding a sharp battle intent. Furthermore, the remaining members of Twin Helix seemed to have prepared for battle. It was to the point where their petite elf team member had begun chanting a supportive spell.
In the village elders’ brief hesitation, the village chief arrived at their location after noticing the ruckus. He immediately scolds them in anger, veins popping off on his neck. “The fuck are you doing? Twin Helix is on a mission to help us talent regeneration and inject fresh blood into our ranks, you want to sabotage our future?” He started to physically push back the elders, before stopping to crease his brow. “I’ve been turning a blind eye to this, thinking you’d eventually resolve it on your own, but you lot have been too overbearing lately. Why can’t you keep your dick in your pants?” He almost demoted them from being the elders of this village due to sheer fury, but that position carried weight and responsibilities in this village.
Even if he’s the most powerful figure in the village, he couldn’t simply do that because their positions were won due to parties with a vested interest in them.
“Yawn…” Kenji casually walked towards Sakuya, not yawning, but literally just saying the word ‘yawn’. “Are we about to fight these people or not?” He asked Katyusha who’s accompanying, er, babysitting him.
“Be quiet now, if we fight, the captain will have to wipe your ass for you again.” Katyusha spoke in a low voice, but it was loud enough for the village chief and elders to hear. “Remember how she glassed a village last year because you fucked up? I surely hope we don’t have to do it again this year…”
“...” The chief began sweating bullets. Twin Helix has been kind and reasonable in Mira village, so the people here, the elders specifically, thought they were pushovers. However, everyone knew about the village not far from here that was literally glassed, destroyed without a single survivor. If what she said is true, then the fact that Twin Helix could still operate normally after such an event means this team’s background is completely beyond the scope of his understanding.
Of course, he might not be able to confirm Katyusha’s words in his lifetime. The person in question doesn’t even care about the absurdity of the nonsense that she uttered since she made that up… well, she thinks she did. Even Sakuya, her teammate, couldn’t confirm nor care about it because the captain of Twin Helix has been moving separately more often than not with the other three members, that woman’s scheme sometimes so convoluted that even the vice-captain couldn’t keep up despite being a wisdom-path cultivator.
With Katyusha’s bluff-but-not-really, the village chief’s effort to suppress this matter rose exponentially. He really, really doesn’t want a set of elders to cause the village to be razed over a grade-A talent just because they couldn’t keep their pants zipped. Naturally, the elders will have to win some face so they won’t go down without a fight. Although they had begun conversing like proper adults, it was actually a heated debate.
“Are you happy with this outcome?” Sakuya whispered to Mordred while watching the village chief suppressing dissent.
“Not yet.” He whispered back with malicious intent. “I won’t be satisfied until my parents are completely erased from the face of the earth. From the looks of it, my father should be one of those seven elders.”
“Hahaha. It’s good that you’re still able to hold on to that idea. It won’t be long, you just need to be patient for a little while. Our captain has sent us Katyusha under Sumire’s command. She’ll be able to complete your request before we depart from this shithole.”
Mordred was genuinely surprised. It seems like that ice woman foreigner is someone special even amongst Twin Helix. “I see. I can’t wait to hear the good news.” His gaze towards Katyusha has slowly turned to an expectant one.