(Part 2)

The man smiled, passed two fingers on his sideburns and his sneer grew wider. His confidence and her defiance were growing as if feeding on one another, but only one would devour the other eventually. He was in a comfortably good spot or even better than what he realized since the security was lifted.

"Even if you say so, I wouldn't touch a lady so… do it." The man signaled to the other three.

The man in brown walked towards Vivian followed by the two women who looked as vicious as wolves eyeing prey. Their aim was to knock down this high and mighty lady of her high horse for whatever reasons they had.

"You shan't lay a hand on my Lady."

Vigorously, Esmeralda moved from Vivian's side to shield her from disgrace but the man in brown had a nasty look in his eyes as he eyed Esmeralda up and down.

"Hehe! You'll have your turn."

With the head of his cane, he hit Esmeralda's arm causing her to stagger to the side and fall towards the dark corner. She landed badly but luckily —or unlucky— she landed on something soft.

Soft as it was, it caused her to feel the coldest of shivers as her vision adapted to the dark.

A body… a dead body. Still warm but unmistakably familiar.

She screamed or was about to but the man in brown was onto her.

"Little girls shouldn't do naughty stuff."

He grabbed Esmeralda by the hair and started to drag her away as Vivian roared at him.

"The nerve!"

"Shut your bloody trap!"

The two women holding knives surrounded her about to search her for the Storage Purse. Meanwhile, the man in black spoke to the other in brown.

"Make it clean." He said.

The reply ought to come right away but it was this moment when Vivian found the window of opportunity.

She waited and waited for a long time and it was finally the moment after careful consideration. The two men aren't focusing and the two women are in arm's reach.

She just had to…

Slash Slash

… kill the two women using their own knives.

It was simple. They were no longer focusing on her as a threat and Esmeralda was in danger. She just had to move faster and disarm them with the slightest move of her hand before burying their knives into their necks.

They couldn't even make a sound, hardly the men who weren't looking at her noticed. All in a split second.

The two women were down choking on their blood and the knives in their necks.

Esmeralda saw it clearly and her crying suddenly halted. The two men noticed but it was too late as the knives were flying at their vitals with an unmatchable throwing skill. The man in brown received a knife to his side and the man in black was about to be hit in his neck.

The former was hit and reduced to the ground but the latter managed to move his head away from the knife's trajectory.

"You!"

"DIE!"

Unbelievably swift, the man in black didn't realize that the second attack was already being delivered as Vivian reduced the distance between them and launched an unladylike punch.

But it wasn't a punch, there was a blade coming off her fist.

The Push Dagger tried relentlessly to claim the man's life but he was extremely nimble, way too nimble even for Vivian.

He took a couple of steps away only to retreat to the other end of the stable as he snatched the other man's cane on the way.

"You… how did you…"

This was way too unpredictable. Vivian Moore is just a haughty little brat, no way could she have had such quality martial training.

The skill was way too good but looking at his associate in a brown suit who was groaning on the ground like a dying hog, the man in black made an unpleasant face.

On the other hand, Esmeralda found herself free and ran to Vivian.

"My lady… my Lady… you… you can't…"

"GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!" Vivian shouted at her.

Facing the stern Vivian, even the man in black was perplexed. She swiftly killed without hesitation and had a vulgar tongue like a street kid. If not for her fame, the man would have thought that he had fallen into a trap himself but that wasn't what mattered a moment later, he soon discovered something interesting.

"It seems that… I see." The man's face loosened up for a bit, "You're good but you aren't trained."

Normally, this would have been of vital importance to anyone in a fight against a knight such as himself. She was swift and her skill seemed very high in comparison to his but as long as she couldn't use magic or aura, she was nothing but a jester fooling around with a sharp stabby blade.

Strange energy enshrouded the man as he held the cane tightly, a click sounded as the man twisted the top of his cane and it came off in his hand as a long slender blade. The energy enveloped the cane sword as well in a Bronze Aura which made the rank of the knight clear.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

An Apprentice Knight.

"Blame yourself for being unruly." The man walked towards Vivian in a heavy mood now that he had to get his hands dirty.

"No…"

Esmeralda was frigid from fear but she grasped onto Vivian closely and tried to pull her away from the man. Vivian also wanted to retreat but this situation was already this bad, that she ran out of options but to fight head-on.

"Get back!" She pushed away Esmeralda as she took a couple of steps forward.

Her disadvantage was clear since she was physically weaker and had a shorter weapon range in this fight but that wasn't going to stop her.

She had one chance to kill this man and one chance only. Whatever she had to do, she had to take the important steps now.

"System shop, what are my options?"

She asked in a low voice as the system responded with a long list of items that none seemed beneficial at the moment. Vivian hastily returned the Push Dagger to the Storage Purse and selected an item not from the Weapons list but rather from the Gadget's list.

———————————

[Common Umbrella]

— Price: 110 SP

———————————

That's all she needed and it all happened in a second. The next second, a black umbrella appeared magically in front of her and she opened it aimed at the man.

Now how do people react when they are faced with the unexpected?

Some would simply flench and others would lash, the man in black felt a bit confident so he slashed at the Umbrella but…

BANG

An unanticipated gunshot came from the other side. Vivian was aiming her antique gun roughly towards the man's head. The sword slash tore through the umbrella and the two objects were entangled into each other as their owners discarded them. Vivian hurriedly retreated and finally took a good look at the man she shot.

"ARGH! AAAARGH!"

Not dead!

How in the seven bloody hells? She just shot him not just in the head but in the most valuable part, right in the eye.

The man knelt on one knee and started screaming as his left eye was gushing out blood and flesh. Only thanks to his Aura Shield did he survive such a cunning bullet yet he was in no right mind to fend for himself… well, not until Vivian came after him again.

There was no time. She indeed shot him but the bastard survived. If not for this useless toy gun she received from the pig-headed gunsmith, she would have dyed the scene with brain matter from this shot. Now she had to take things into her own hands.

The nearest thing was the cane sword which the man discarded. She ran towards it and took it by the handle, driving it towards its owner. The cockroach of a man refused to silently die as he became alert all of a sudden and held the blade from its spine firmly. No matter how Vivian pushed or pulled, it didn't budge.

"Die, you bastard!"

She was desperately going for the kill but the man managed to get his balance and looked at her with a hateful eye.

"You… forget walking alive…"

Before he could continue what he was saying, Vivian launched a high kick towards his chin causing the man to lose balance and groan from the pain as the wound in his eye was affected by the shock. He fell back but he managed to throw the cane sword away from her. She didn't really care since all she could do now was either kick, punch, or use the Push Dagger.

She simply used everything at her disposal just to dispatch this single knight. As he staggered backward, she jumped on him and gave him hell. Attacking his head was mortally effective since he was desperately trying to defend his wound but no matter how she tried to stab him with the push dagger, this guy’s body seemed extremely resilient as if something was just pushing her blade away every time she tried to aim at him. Aside from a few scratches, nothing really happened.

“Dammit! JUST DIE!” She screamed in frustration.

“Get… GET OFF ME!” The man finally managed to hold a grip on the situation and punched blindly to her face.

In life, some struggles were just one of a kind. Such as this fight, such as many more she had been through in the past. However, this fight was more of an eye-opener than anything else.

She was pushed around at the end of this struggle no matter how much effort she exerted. It is not the common feminine fragility excuse everyone goes about in these sorts of situations but rather, this was something supernatural.

The list of people Nadia ever lost to in hand-to-hand combat contains the names of an elite few who could be considered as best of the best, other than that, she bested her opponent with both wit and skill only to fall short against the brutish supernatural force of this world.

This supernatural power vexed her to no end. It held her stabs at bay, pushed her attacks away, and overpowered her despite the fatal injuries she inflicted on her opponent.

Quite monstrous, she thought.

The man's punch was so terrible that she felt the inside of her head turn into mush.

Now that she is the one on the ground despite all that she did and the man standing over her staggering from pain and rage, she tried her best to exert more effort but the man stood over her in a vicious manner.

“You’ll die here… slut!”

Around his left foot, a strange energy formed as if all the energy he used to protect his body was condensed in one spot. And without a shred of mercy, he delivered a kick right to her guts.

Her scream was all she could hear as her consciousness faded.

The power of the kick carried Vivian from where she was and sent her to the stable wall where she crashed before falling down motionless.

As for the man, he staggered with terrible pain as the bullet that stopped in his eye socket started to affect him badly. He looked at Esmeralda who was shivering in the corner and tried to reach her out of malice and anger but his power betrayed him as he fell on his face no longer breathing.

Now that the aura protecting him was focused somewhere else, there was no saving him anymore.

Esmeralda was the one who remained conscious and mostly unharmed. She was standing with her entire being frozen in cold sweat. She found no courage to do anything except look at the whole scene in absolute disbelief and utter shock.

She didn’t even go through a week in Vivian’s service for such an accident to happen, this was the worst of all fears for any maid.

Despite that, what woke her up was the twitching man in brown who had dragged her a while ago. He received a knife to his side just a moment ago when Vivian skillfully hunted him down but despite that, he was another cockroach who refused to die. His injury was fatal but didn’t hit any vitals, the only danger he’d face if he tried to take it out, and of all the idiotic things he did that night, he took the knife out with a groan.

Seeing the mess around him, the man in brown saw his master lying lifeless and Vivian motionless with the two women he brought lying in puddles of their blood.

This Vivian Moore… this Witch… it was her.

Emotions of fear, doubt, and madness flashed in the man’s eyes and they met Esmeralda’s. Their bewilderment turned into hostility as he wanted to get rid of her instantly. This has gone too far south and the best thing to do is to eliminate the witness.

As the thought of malice crossed his mind, Esmeralda saw the cane sword lying on the ground near her. She mindlessly rushed at it grabbing its hilt with two shaking hands and pointing it at the man who slowly stepped up in pain.

Mindless of his dripping blood, the man tried to intimidate Esmeralda but her blood was hot and her adrenaline was pumping from the fight she just witnessed, she reacted instantly and waved the sword around to keep him at bay. It wasn't at all effective but the man stepped back towards the door of the stable.

“You… You won’t walk out from here.” He said, “Just die and let this end.”

He flipped his grip as his killing intent was wide clear on his face. Esmeralda kept the blade in front of her but suddenly screamed from fear and dropped it with the emergence of a blinding silver light. All of a sudden, the man in brown was split horizontally in half as the stable's door was blown away into splinters.

Logan was standing with a greatsword as he tore down the whole stable’s front gate. The look on his face was relieved to see Esmeralda who went pale from fear but once he saw the lady he was supposed to protect and the bloodbath around her, the last bit of sanity he was clinging to was falling apart.

Tonight’s accident won’t simply go away, it is the first round of a raging storm of blood and death.