Chapter 94
What is Love?
Leida was scared.
She was not scared for herself, but for her beloved Yuuji and her friends.
Everything about this was wrong. It had been wrong ever since that night of the Ball. It should have been just another mission for them. Something easy that would not need much care. But the girl called Cornelia destroyed it all. How she acted; the difference between her actions yesterday and now would give anyone doubts.
She had known Yuuji ever since she saved her from being assaulted by bandits and had been with him ever since. She had shared her first with him in a forest under the stars, after which they traveled together and met Seine and Kamiya. He had given her much, and she gave her all in turn. That feeling did not change even after she knew about his Blessing.
She knew the strength of her companions and trusted them. They could not be compared to a girl playing at being a Hunter. Especially not one who was overestimating herself after being invited to a party by a dark elf.
But like they all said.
The most beautiful flowers had the most poison.
----------------------------------------
“Yuuji!”
After being blasted away by the slime’s tentacles, Leida stood up and quickly ran towards her beloved to support him.
SNIKT! SNIKT! SNIKT!
Three swords stabbed into the ground from above, barely missing her feet as she jumped back in haste.
Leida looked at the image of a cherub, smiling wanly at her. “Missed! Dammit!”
The boy snapped his fingers and the swords returned to his side.
“Why? Why did you attack us? We just wanted to talk!!” the woman said.
“Do you think of us as idiot, Miss Mage? Do you think deliberately charming women is not a crime?” the Beastfolk boy replied with a frown. “…perhaps that’s the effect of the brainwashing…but that’s not why I’m facing you now.”
He slid open the spice box and said. “Telekinesis.”
Three other sword came out of the box and joined the swords floating around him.
Controlling floating swords? I’ve never seen such a Skill. Seeing this, the Mage knew that there was no chance of peace and quickly prepared herself for combat.
She launched a Lightning Spear spell which he quickly evaded by quickly rolling to the side. She fired two of the same spells and he blocked it by launching two of his swords at them. Sparks flew as the spell met with the swords. The swords bounced back from the force. One flew past him and stabbed into a three behind him while the other fell hard to the ground.
“Gagh!” Martell felt like his chest was hit by a fist. I see now. If my will is still inside the sword when the swords got hit with stronger force, it will hurt me. Martell usually did not put much of his will inside the items he used Telekinesis on, but he needed the degree of control he got by using it if he wanted to be able to fight his current opponent.
“Let my enemies feel the wrath of Mydirr!!” the woman chanted. She readied one of the stronger spells she had so that she could finish the battle quickly. “Lightning Pillar!!”
CRACK!! BOOM!!!
A shaft of lightning exploded downwards, nearly hitting Martell. But he managed to shield himself with three of his swords. But they were too weak to handle such a powerful spell and broke apart instantly. The explosion blew him away. His body bounced on the ground a few times like he was a rag doll. The spice box in his hand was flung away from the force before hitting a tree and spilling its inside on the ground.
“Give up please,” the woman pleaded. “Our goal is only your Mistress. As long as you backed down, you can be free of your collar,” Despite her nickname as the Thunderclap Witch, Leida at heart was a kind person. She fought out of necessity. Hurting someone so young even if it was for self-protection still left her with a bad taste. So, she left him with those kind words.
Just as she was about to go to her beloved’s side, she heard the Beastfolk’s voice. It was tinged with derision. Enough to send a shiver down her spine. “Slave?”
Martell slowly drew himself up. That last spell had broken some of his ribs; his face and body were bleeding from the pieces of the broken swords and his hair was matted from the blood from the cuts on his forehead. And yet he had never felt more alive.
“I chose to serve Mistress Connie. This slave status is nothing more than a promise between me and her. Unlike you, I am not an indentured puppet,” the boy coughed and spat out dark blood onto the ground.
“A-a puppet? What are you talking about?”
“You can’t lie to me. Judging by the way he treated all of you, I knew that he thought of you all as nothing more than outlets for his lust. I may not be very good at emotions, but I can see his eyes. And I’ve seen those eyes many times in bed,” Martell glanced at the swords still in his box. I have four in the box, two outside.
Her expression of pity that she showed him suddenly turned ugly. Her heart throbbed. Unpleasant, disgusting feeling that made her want to vomit assaulted her. Her grip on her staff became tighter, so tight it hurts.
“Yes. That expression on you is already answer enough. You know…I asked Mistress Connie if you can find happiness in a one-sided love. And that poem she sang was the answer Mistress gave,” he said.
Leida’s face became unsightly and all worry for her Hero had disappeared, leaving her with the white-hot rage that blanked her mind. “SHUT! UP!! LIGHTNING SPEAR!!”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
She released a spell, but this one was charged with mana that its size was incomparable with the ones she used before. But the charging time added to the length of the chanting, giving Martell a chance to hide behind a tree before the spell exploded.
“Do you…(pant) know that your Hero has the Charm Skill? To you, is that love? If you know that what you feel towards him is because of that Charm, is that still love? Hey, tell me. I want to know!!”
“SHUT UP!! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!!”
The woman fired spell after spell, unrelenting. Martell ran, sucking down air as he tried to find a weakness.
“Fire!” two swords were fired one after another at Leida. But the woman erected a barrier that easily deflected them, causing them to fly uncontrollably away.
Martell could tell that the barrier was very strong as it managed to stand against Chen’s attack before.
When he finally managed to grab his box, he touched them; he snapped his fingers and announced his Skill as he evaded another spell.
Martell formed a mudra with his thumb and index finger and chanted a few passages in Dharmic Language. The four swords floating around him floated above his head and began to spin, releasing a Dharmic light. At present, four was the maximum number of the swords he could utilise to fire off the Art of Golden Lotus of Prajnaparamita. Any more than that and he would start having massive headaches.
Despite being blinded by anger, Leida felt a crisis unfolding when she saw the halo above him and attempted to stop him. She tapped the ground with her staff and a large rune appeared beneath her, crackling with Mana. She drank a mana potion and conjured seven spears of lightning which she charged while also using her Unique Skill to cast barrier on herself.
The spears congregated into a ball of lightning and she declared her Skill with urgency. “Compound Magic: Lightning Blast!!”
The resulting ball fired off a thick lightning bolt which burned and razed the ground as it went towards Martell
The four swords now spun with incredible Energy, causing the image of a lotus with four petals to appear in the middle.
“The Light of Buddha Shines Over All Men!”
The four swords bearing the mercy of Buddha were launched and the two attacks met in a grand display of light. The heat it created caused small fires to form on the ground and the trees began to crack.
After the spectacle, a small figure fell on his knees. Gasping for breath while holding his ribs. In front of him, the swords he used were all broken in halves. On the other side, Leida was standing straight with a depleting barrier.
“You are very talented. But you are too young and too low leveled,” Leida said as she pointed her magic at him. “I’m sorry. I’ve tried to give you a chance. But you refused. Even if you are just a boy, I cannot let you live. Not after what you said.”
“Haha…ha…I haven’t lost yet…” he said, kneeling on both knees, looking pathetic. The very image of a sore loser. She half expected that he would beg for his life. But she knew better.
“I haven’t lost!!”
“No. you have. You have lost all your swords,” She pointed her staff at him, a spark began to appear on its tip. “Goodbye.”
“Yes. Goodbye,” Martell replied, a smile appeared on his lips.
BONK!!
Leida felt a brief and sudden pain at the back on her head.
Then she felt like everything became hazy and she forgot what she was doing. She looked at the boy with a triumphant smile on his face before she lost all power in her body and everything went black.
Martell glanced at the bloodied spice box. It might be just a wooden box. But it was thick and heavy as it needed to be strong enough to store precious spices. A blunt weapon in its own right.
He looked at the poor Mage and took one of his swords, which was broken in half. One false move and he would be the one to fall today. She was stronger than him, but he played smarter. And so he lived another day.
“To have the ability to choose to be taken away from you,” he said, taking a stance over her body, sword held overhead. “I pity you. I pity you for your fate. But at least now you are no longer a puppet.”
----------------------------------------
Kasheem took up a stance with his saber on his right hand, held diagonally across his torso. His stance low and firm, giving little in the way of opening. This time he did not bring his usual arm, but his treasured Khiljid, Nur-Almaut. A weapon given to him by the Red Prince upon his appointment as his private guard. The silvery sheen of its curved blade had a glow about it. The ancient rune written upon its ornamented hilt gave its wielder command of the earth.
On the other side, Kamiya drew Rugell and Fahn. The two swords were identical, with the former blessed by the Wind and the other, Lightning.
Kamiya held Rugell with her left, covering the side of her body. While Fahn was held with the right hand above her head. Her legs scraped the ground as she took up a sideways stance, giving the opponent little access to her body parts.
Both of their eyes narrowed as they circled slowly against each other. They could sense that they were evenly matched.
Evaluating. Thinking. Kasheem’s feet were lifted only slightly above the ground. While Kamiya scraped hers, making a curved line across the ground.
“Ground Slash!” Kasheem made the first move. He dragged his saber along the ground, sending a wave of sharp wind that grew as it went farther, sending gold and red leaves flying. Kamiya dodged to the left and found a sword heading towards her amongst the curtain of fallen leaves. She parried it with Fahn and stabbed forward with Rugell.
The dark-skinned warrior did not finish his slashing move and used his weight to swerve to the left, avoiding the sword. Then he quickly jumped back into the fray, his Khiljid twirling and chopping left and right like an unstoppable wave, supported by his strong wrist. A few of his attacks managed to get through and cut across
Kamiya could not deflect the Khiljid because of its rigidness and could only take steps back while blocking what attacks she could block with her swords. On the sixth move, she spotted a gap in the move and unleashed a Skill.
“Raging Wind Slash!” Rugell swung upward, creating a gust of wind that threw Kasheem off his legs. Not wasting this chance, Kamiya jumped towards him and shouted. “Thunderfall!”
Crackling blue lightning ran across the forest floor as she brought Fahn down on Kasheem’s head. But he managed to roll to the side in time, gaining him time to stand back up while sweeping his sword across the ground.
The move, though big, was effective. Kamiya did not manage to jump in time and the sword managed to nick her leg. However, due to her protective boots, it did not manage to cut as deep as Kasheem hoped.
The man came in pursuit as she tried to steady herself, cutting left right, left right. His moves were swift and a few even managed to graze her body. Blood seeped from the thin cuts caused by the attack.
“HAAH!!” he charged forward, emboldened by his momentum, both hands on his Khiljid’s hilt. “Horse Beheader!” The Khiljid glowed bright yellow as he cut down, the neigh of a horse could be heard faintly from the wind caused by the Skill.
Kamiya blocked the attack with both swords, but the pressure from the Skill refused to relent and the blade continued to make its way down towards her head.
“STEEL BODY!”
Her muscles turned rigid and Kasheem felt like he was pushing down on a boulder.
“RRRAGH!” She mustered her strength and pushed back angrily.
Kasheem’s arms were thrown up from the push. “Not good!!”
Kamiya thrust forward with both swords. Fahn failed to hit the target, but Rugell managed to pierce through the side of his stomach.
“Urgh!!” the man decisively kicked forward with his left leg, wincing from the pain. Kamiya received the kick on the stomach and had the air kicked out of her.
“Agh…hah…hah…you are good warrior. Why would you allow your charge to do something vile such as this?”
the black-haired swordswoman coughed uncontrollably from the pain as she struggled to take out a bottle of potion, just as Kasheem was doing at the moment.
“You don’t know how it feels…” Kamiya grimaced as she also downed a bottle of potion, healing the small cuts and partially healing the one on her leg. However, it did not stop her coughing. “…to love him…knowing that I won’t live long enough to see him grow. I just wanted him to be happy!”
“I don’t know. I don’t need to know,” Kasheem readied his sword. His eyes narrowed, showing disgust at the mention of Kurosaki Yuuji. “Such a disgrace of a man should be sent to Sud-Ghazid as soon as he was born. And you have failed as his Master. A Master who cannot admonish the wrongs of her student should not have even taken a student at all.”
Kamiya’s heart grew angry at hearing Yuuji’s name being slighted. But she was an experienced fighter and did not let it blind her. She set her stance and the two continued her clash.
As their battle was nearing its peak, they heard a cry. Kasheem grinned after hearing that, but for Kamiya, it was like having her heart cut out.
“YUUJI!!”