Chapter 29: Lunia Arden (1)

༺ Lunia Arden (1)༻

She stood tall and proud with her tough and imposing physique. Her back was so straight that it looked like she was being supported with a thick stick and her long black hair reached all the way down to her waist.

The buttons of her jet-black suit were all undone except for the few around her chest, which thus revealed her voluptuous lines, but she gave off a dignified aura that overshadowed it.

A heroine.

It was as if that word had been made solely for her sake.

– Flop!

The monster slowly crumbled to the ground after the sword pierced through the head of the horse all the way to its rider.

The Grade 1 demonic beast, ‘Dullahan’, that had been pushing Alicia to her limits died in the blink of an eye. Even though it was a surprise attack, only someone like Lunia who was at the level of a semi-Unique Grade Knight would be able to defeat such a sensitive monster in one strike.

“U, unni...”

She was the contemporary heroine, Lunia Arden.

Her bluish brown eyes, elegant set of facial features as well as her physical characteristics all the way up from her legs – even from a glance, it was easy to spot the similarities between these two sisters.

However, they gave off a totally different atmosphere. It was as different as a tiger and a rodent.Upstodatee from n(0)/ve/lbIn/.(co/m

Unlike the innocent and warm look on Alicia’s face, Lunia looked so sharp and cold that the chilliness seemed to affect the surrounding air.

Lunia opened her mouth without even hiding her animosity against her younger sister, Alicia.

“That was pathetic. Why did you not fall back after seeing the Dullahan? Why didn’t you scout the enemy beforehand? And most importantly, what was with that miserable attack?”

She coerced Alicia with her voice. The coldness of her expression and the contempt in her gaze were so intense that no-one would be able to forget it after receiving it even once.

“S, sorry...”

“Stop. The result of your actions are all a part of your responsibility. A few words of apology are not going to be enough. Be aware that your carelessness was what endangered the soldiers who had followed you out of trust.”

“Yess...”

Alicia shrunk and instinctively lowered her shoulders when the back of Lunia’s sword struck her arm like a whip.

“Ugh...!”

“A swordsman of Arden must stand tall at all times.”

“Y, yes...!”

They seemed more like a higher-up and a subordinate of the military instead of sisters. In truth, that indeed was the base culture of the Arden household.

Well, they were actually more like a group of gangsters than the military.

“But still... to think there’s someone unwilling to help their comrade in distress.”

Lunia turned her sharp glare towards me. She might have noticed that I was watching Alicia while pretending to have my hands full.

However, she soon turned away from me as if she didn’t want to bother quibbling about it.

After a while, several female swordsmen wearing suits neatly lined up in front of her.

“Captain. We have finished dealing with the nearby demonic beasts.”

“Shall we chase the ones that are running away?”

Those swordsmen that followed Lunia Arden around looked like armed gangsters wielding weapons but they were the elites of the Arden dojo.

Jennie the Rapid Sword, Sirin the Duel Wielder, Lena of the Rippling Sword, Mei the Sword of True Darkness, and Milia of the Illusionary Sword.

They were the Five Swords of the Arden family who were each at the level of a Grade 2 Knight. Each and every one of them were either stronger or as strong as Alicia.

“There is no need to chase after them. We’re going back.”

“By your will, Captain.”

The five swordsmen lowered their heads without raising any questions about Lunia’s command. Then, they gave a comparatively warmer greeting to the intimidated Alicia.

“It has been a while, young miss.”

“H, hello. Sisters...”

– Tap!

That was when Lunia tapped on the ground with her scabbard as if she wasn’t content with something, as they immediately re-addressed her using a different title.

“Do you have any injuries, Junior Sister?”

“I, I’m fine. Senior Sister Jennie.”

After making sure they were calling each other using the right title, Lunia turned around. While the security guards were almost done inspecting the nest of the demonic beasts, Alicia fidgeted with her hands before carefully walking up to her.

“W, what brought you here?”

“That is classified information.”

“T, then how long do you plan on staying...”

“That is classified information.”

“...”

Their conversation was followed with a heavy silence. This was how their conversation always went.

“Of course, I didn’t come to see such a pathetic side of my kindred. It’s a shame I do not have any other choice.”

“Ughh...”

This time, Alicia didn’t shrink her shoulders because she knew she would receive a fierce strike with the back of the sword.

After turning her back to Alicia, Lunia clomped her way towards me along with a ferocious vigor.

“I am the head disciple of the Divine Arden Swordsmanship, the First Captain, Lunia Arden.”

“...”

Hmm. Because of her formal explanation of herself, I had to do a matching introduction of myself.

“I am the worldly disciple of Eight Trigrams Spearmanship, Korin Lork.”

“...”

Lunia stared directly into my eyes.

Yes, I know.

I knew what she wanted to say but I couldn’t tell her the real identity of my spearmanship.

In the current era, there were only two people apart from me that were using this specific spearmanship. There were only a few people that could notice its true identity just by seeing it, but there might be problems in the future if I talked about the name myself.

“Don’t worry if you don’t want to talk about it. What is your relationship with our fool?”

“Umm... I’m her friend.”

“A friend? ...... Take this.”

After slight hesitation, Lunia took something out of her pocket and handed it over to me.

The outer packaging had the unique decoration of a bee. I knew what it was since I had been sending a few of them back home because of the letters of my sister.

Honey bomb candies.

Its characteristic was the explosive bomb of sugar that showed the extreme limits of sweetness and numbed your tongue.

“...”

As expected of sisters, their tastes were exactly the same.

“Let us return.”

Lunia Arden commanded the security guards as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

****

“It seems that young miss... I mean Junior Sister has been healthy.”

“It looked like she even gained some weight.”

The Five Swords casually talked about Alicia while following behind Lunia. The reason they were so carefree despite the conversation concerning the one and only competitor of the successor candidate they were loyal to was partially because they knew how upright Lunia Arden was, but there was another reason.

Someone like Alicia Arden would never be able to contend against Lunia Arden.

Even though the Sword Emperor personally chose Alicia as a successor candidate and gave her the demon-slaying sword on top of that, Alicia had been unable to display herself as a suitable future successor of the Arden household.

Ever since ‘that incident’, Alicia Arden grabbed the attention of many people, but at the same time, that caused her to break. The weak-minded girl was not suited for the path of a killing sword.

“Bye Korin! See you later!”

Hmm. I didn’t know much about kids these days.

Like, it had been a long time since I last played with girls. Because of the disruptive actions of Park in the last iteration, I didn’t have any girlfriend in the past 3 years.

There were some suggestive atmospheres and relationships but... it’s all because of that stupid Park that I didn’t get to make any girlfriends.

I’m serious.

That had to be the case...

Anyway, Marie would probably reappear out of nowhere tomorrow like always.

The next day, I was heading to the cafeteria to have lunch with my friends when an unexpected person stopped me in my tracks.

“Huuik!”

“U, uaah...”

Jaeger and Lark shivered like herbivores in front of a carnivore. Their instinct as an organism was telling them to lower themselves before the predator in front of their eyes.

“Hua Ran?”

Hua Ran with the same chained nun clothes came to me.

“What’s up?”

“Your promise.”

“Nn?”

“Meal.”

“...Ah.”

It was about a month ago that we made that promise.

Back when I was suspicious about Marie’s awakening, I had gone looking for Hua Ran at the special dormitory to ask about Lady Josephine’s whereabouts.

I told her I would buy her a meal as a show of gratitude but I had completely forgotten about it.

“Hmm...”

I actually didn’t mean it when I said that though...

“Guess I can’t have lunch with you guys today.”

“Y, yeah.”

“Hmm... Actually, I think I forgot to do my homework.”

“I can help you!”

The two of them ran away in the blink of an eye. They didn’t do anything wrong to Hua Ran but their fear was justified because her aura alone was already in an overwhelmingly different league.

“Rice.”

“Hmm... what do you want?”

“Rice.”

“Do you want some spicy chicken feet...”

“...”

Hmm, judging from her reaction, it seemed that I would probably become one with the spicy chicken feet if I tried to feed her that.

Let’s see. Hua Ran looked like a sharp cat... and cats like fish so...

“Do you want some mackerels?”

– Nod.

Good. It seemed that Hua Ran was fine with fish. In the central streets of the Academy, there were plenty of other restaurants apart from the academy cafeteria. Although most of them were high-class restaurants that were incomparably more expensive than the cafeteria, there were still some normal ones.

“Aunty! A mackerel set and a roe soup for us please!”

Soon came roe soup in a black stone pot and a set meal with grilled mackerel. In addition, there were also 2-people’s-worth of side dishes.

“It’s Eastern style, but it’s a bit different from your place, right? Even apart from the peninsula-style cuisine, there are some oversea-style cuisines here.”

“Oversea-style?”

“You know, places that sell raw fish on rice.”

“...Are they tasty?”

“They’re not cost-efficient but they are tasty.”

“...I want to go.”

Did I have to take her there next time? I guess I had to talk about it with Lady Josephine.

Hua Ran put aside the steaming bowl of white rice and was about to pick up the mackerel with her bare hands.

“Wait.”

“...”

“Are you going to eat that with your bare hands?”

“???”

She appeared to be asking why not.

“The bones are going to be stuck in your throat.”

“I can eat the bones as well.”

“...”

She probably could, considering how she had the Unbreakable Vajra Body but still, that was not how this dish was supposed to be consumed.

“Let me take the bones out. Wait a bit.”

I used to come to this restaurant quite a lot in the last iteration because both Park and I kept ourselves from feeling homesick with the help of Korean cuisine.

By separating the flesh of the fish into two, I separated them into chunks and skilfully removed the back bone. When I was done removing the small and fine bones of the fish and separated the flesh into nice and edible pieces, I saw Hua Ran gulping in front of me.

“Let’s dive in.”

Hua Ran began eating the mackerel set meal.

The grilled mackerel was moist on the inside while the skin had a golden crust and was more than sufficient for a nice meal.

Besides, it was grilled quite nicely and didn’t smell too much like fish. But that didn’t mean you didn’t have to brush your teeth after eating it!

In any case, watching her eating all the pieces of deboned mackerel was a very pleasing sight. She was only three years old now so I was worried that she might be picky with some food but that must have been my prejudice...

“Hua Ran.”

“...What?”

“Why do I have double the pickles from before?”

“...”

She directly stared at me as if she did nothing wrong. After that, she raised her bowl of shredded radish salad and nonchalantly poured it into my bowl.

What? Why?

She replied to my gaze.

“I don’t like this.”

“...”

“I don’t want to eat this.”

“...”

“I can eat this.”

Lastly, she picked up my bowl of stir-fried fish cakes. She seemed rather proud with that ‘We’re even now right?’ look on her face.

Anyway, that was how I spent my life everyday. On the weekdays, I would listen to lectures and go to the training rooms, and I completed missions to clear the 1st Precept on the weekends.

The weapon that I had requested from Ferghus was about to be done as well, and it was about time to deal with the Murderer of the City of Fog.

It was a bit early, but it was the start of the 2nd Arc.