A wine glass smashed against the wall so hard the sound echoed through the entire room.
"Arghhhhhhhh! "
Viscount Luke roared, his veins bulging, his face flushed a violent red. He turned slowly toward the knight who had brought him the news of their defeat. His fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white, every fiber of his being resisting the urge to beat the knight into a bloody stain on the floor.
The knight instinctively stepped back, fear tightening his throat. He hadn’t wanted to be the one to deliver the report, but the unlucky draw had chosen him. Now he stood trembling under the Viscount’s blazing glare.
"You an to tell ," Luke growled, "that a town not even half the size of Oden managed to not only defeat you—"
His voice rose, trembling with rage.
"—but capture a huge majority of my soldiers, send the rest running, and leave you all with casualties?"
The knight bowed his head low.
"Yes, my lord."
BOOM!
The Viscount’s fist smashed into the wall. Brick cracked. His knuckles split open. Blood dripped onto the floor.
He turned to the knight, eyes burning with murderous hatred.
"How dare you. How dare you drag my na through the mud? Fail ... and then co crawling back? You should all be dead!"
His roar shook the windows, but he couldn’t kill them. As much as he wanted to, he needed manpower.
He paced back and forth, breathing hard through gritted teeth as he forced himself to calm down even slightly. Finally, he looked at the trembling knight again.
"Tell exactly what happened. What special forces did they call? How many knights did they summon? Who stopped you?"
The knight swallowed hard. This was the part he feared most. Because the truth... sounded even more ridiculous than failure itself.
He looked away.
"Don’t you dare waste my ti," the Viscount bellowed. "Or I’ll have your head severed where you stand!"
The knight looked up quickly, voice shaking.
"M-My lord... there were only fifty knights from the Baron’s household. The rest... the rest were simply the villagers. The townsn."
The Viscount’s eyes widened.
"Are you joking with ? Are you playing with ?"
"N-No, my lord," the knight stuttered. "I speak the truth. The townsn fought us wielding hoes, sticks, even farming bats. But sohow... sohow they suppressed us. One man could take on three, four, or five of ours without even breaking a sweat. It was like they had monstrous strength inside their bodies. Impossible strength. We swung our blades, yet they parried like trained beasts. They overwheld us before we could understand how."
The Viscount stared at him, horrified and furious.
He walked calmly to the cabinet, as if to pour himself another drink. He uncorked a bottle... and hurled it at the knight’s head. The knight dodged by a hair. The bottle exploded against the wall.
"Are you stupid!?" the Viscount roared.
"Do you take for a child!?"
He charged toward the knight, who scrambled backward.
"No, my lord! I swear, that is what happened!"
The Viscount stopped, taking one long, shaking breath before turning away. He moved to his chair and sat down, leaning forward, fingers interlocked.
"I sent three hundred n because I believed they would handle the situation. I even sent Shadow."
He clicked his tongue.
"And now you bring this stupidity."
He exhaled through his nose, slowly.
"It doesn’t matter. I’m sure that Raze brat will want to retaliate. All we have to do is bolster our defenses and wait. He’ll co."
The knight let out the smallest sigh of relief, feeling like he had narrowly escaped death.
"Yes, my lord."
The Viscount looked at him with a cold, dead expression.
"And as for you... your life has ended. I forbid the bearer of bad news."
The knight froze.
"My... my lord?"
He couldn’t get another word out.
The Viscount rose, pulling a sword from his ring. Despite his enormous size, Viscount Luke was still stronger than the average knight, far stronger. The knight turned to run, but the formation in the room activated instantly, forcing him painfully to his knees.
"No—wait—my lord, please, !"
One swing.
SHLICK.
His head rolled across the floor, bouncing until it hit the Viscount’s boot. Luke stepped on it without emotion.
"Stupid imbecile."
[... ]
Ken, the adventurer Raze had t months ago, back when he first t with Terra Crimson, sat inside a dim, noisy bar. A massive mug of beer rested on the table in front of him as he laughed and chatted with the n around him. His cheeks were already flushed from drinking, his voice loud and carefree.
In the middle of their conversation, he suddenly felt sothing drop lightly from his leg.
"Huh?" Ken glanced down, lifting his foot, but saw nothing there. Just wooden floorboards and spilled ale. He shrugged and went right back to drinking, slamming the mug against his lips.
He never noticed the small black dot that had clung to his leg for months after fighting Shadow finally slipping free.
The dot slid across the floor like a sar of living ink, undetected. It slithered beneath the door, out of the bar, and into the alleyway beside the building.
There, the shadow expanded wider, darker, bubbling upward like smoke before folding into a humanoid shape.
A body erged from the darkness.
Shadow stepped out.
She was weak, skin pale, breath shallow, her form trembling as though her bones had only just reford. She wore nothing, her body barely held together by sheer will and the remnants of her mana.
But she was alive, what she had planned all this ti finally worked, she was alive and she was free.
She slowly lifted her head, eyes adjusting to the light, and took a long, ragged breath. Then... a small, genuine smile curved across her lips. One of relief. One of gratitude.
Softly, barely above a whisper, she muttered:
"Thank you... Raze Grimhold.
I will surely repay this."
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