Volume 1 - CH 31

There was a man called Grave in the dark side organization of Claydale Kingdom.

Originally he wasn’t a person of this Claydale Kingdom. He was born as a child in a baron house of Fandora Principality, a religious nation located at the north of Claydale. He was raised as a member of a deeply faithful family, but one day a political enemy held his father in contempt and ousted him from his position as a head priest. Not only that, he ended up dead in prison.

After that Grave’s mother left the country with the still small Grave in tow. Through a harsh journey, they drifted to Claydale Kingdom. But, due to that harsh journey the body of Grave’s mother broke down and she also ended up following his father. Grave who was left alone to live in an unknown land would do anything if it was for the sake of surviving. He survived while resenting this world and the nobles who gave his family and him this kind of destiny.

But it was also noble who saved Grave from his predicament. That man was a Cruzian called Hosu. It seemed his father and him were friend. Hosu apologized to the small Grave for his inability to save his father and mother and welcomed him as a member of his family from his livelihood as criminal in the slum quarters.

But Grave refused to become the adopted son of Hosu who was a noble. He chose the path of fighting as a subordinate of Hosu who was a knight of the dark side.

The upper echelon of Fandora Principality was rotten even though it was a religious country. Surely there were also rotten nobles in this Claydale Kingdom. But, he learned that there were proper nobles remaining here like Hosu without getting crushed. He came to think that this difference came from the strength of the country’s upper echelon──the royal family. If the royal family held their authority correctly, the nation wouldn’t fall into chaos. Grave harshly disciplined himself, trained in martial art and sorcery, and sometimes he even crushed any “evil” that had the possibility of disturbing the country with action that was just barely within the acceptable limit.

Grave particularly hated when people who were capable but had no clear background got close to the royal family. When he heard that Sera would use a child in the security for the princess, it was also him who assigned Castro, someone who hated those who came from the slums to be in charge of the child.

For Grave, anyone who showed contempt to the power of the royal family that consolidated the country was “evil”, even if it was a member of the royal family itself.

Even the weak-willed crown prince who was raised by the first queen who lacked any sense of responsibility, because he was still a child right now he didn’t consider of removing him, but if Princess Elena who was raised by the twisted second queen and became a seed of conflict revolving around the throne’s inheritance tried something, Grave wouldn’t hesitate to remove her even if it would cause him to get executed.

There was a maid apprentice who became that Elena’s favorite. Even though she was a slum kid who Viro brought, she possessed magic power that surpassed noble, and she could even defeat a goblin by herself. It made Grave kept a watch over her. To test that maid apprentice, he even overlooked Elena’s kidnapping intentionally to observe her reaction, but the girl defeated even a rank 3 thief by herself.

It was impossible that there was a child like that. He had no intention to allow such child to enter the palace just because she was Elena’s favorite. He wouldn’t tolerate such danger.

He had no intention to overlook anybody who could disturb the nation’s peace, even if it was just a small bud. He was planning to chase her to the countryside by giving her some work while waiting for the right time to dispose of her, but then the dark side organization gave him an order to check whether there was a certain 『ornament』 in the child’s belonging.

Even the reason for the mission was kept secret. He was only told to check the child’s belonging and not permitted to hurt her at all. From that there was a possibility that this child was a noble’s illegitimate child whose background wasn’t allowed to be exposed.

(Dangerous……)

That child’s existence was too abnormal. She might become an existence that dragged even the royal family and shook this country.

If she really had an ornament and an illegitimate child of a noble, then no matter what her background was, Grave would judge the girl as “contamination” that he had to remove.

「……What do you want?」

On the rooftop of a city at a night without moon. The high butler Grave who was also my employee suddenly appeared and cut down my enemy. He pointed the magic sword in his hand toward me.

「Answer my question.」

「……You know “who” I am already right?」

With unbelievable muscular strength, the tip of the sword that was held with one hand wasn’t shaky at the slightest. His body that looked like in a relaxed stance was enveloped in dangerous atmosphere that stated how he would cut me down if I did anything strange.

「Aria……. The unknown child who Viro brought, an abnormal brat who killed a hobgoblin alone and even mercilessly killed a stronger thief.」

「…………」

「There is no way such brat can exist. How did you obtain that strength? How can you kill human without hesitation in that age? Did you kill that thief to prevent her from talking? What are you hiding? Why is a noble holding an interest for you? I ask you once more……」

Grave’s sharp gaze pierced me.

「Who, are you?」

His killing intent shook the air. I deeply pushed down my heart that was getting scared from that.

「……Who knows.」

How much did this guy know? There should be no one who knew that a noble blood was mixed in me. Was he simply holding doubt because of my combat strength? But to explain that it would be unnatural if I excluded the part about my background. If the existence of the 『ring』 inside my talisman pouch got found out, I would get dragged into the gear of fate once more. This ring that my mother found me was what that woman used to confirm that I was 『me』.

I tried to calmly analyze the situation, even so I was still feeling slightly uneasy that I unconsciously touched the talisman pouch hanging on my neck from over my dress. Grave found fault at my action.

「You’re hiding something just as I thought. Hand it over. If you are related with a noble──」

「──Pain──」

Grave stiffened for an instant from the Pain that I instantly casted. I kicked on the roof using that opening and began my escape. My chance of victory was thin even if I fought against Grave who had combat strength more than ten times of mine. For the current me, far from winning, even escaping was difficult, but if he was hit by my trump card Pain, then an opening should be created even if just for an instant.

「Tsu!」

A killing intent, or rather a bad hunch drove me to leap aside. A knife shallowly cut my shoulder before it pierced the rooftop. At the same time I heard the sound of something cutting through air so without pause I rolled to dodge. Grave’s approaching kick smashed the thick rooftop bricks into pieces.

「You’re related with nobility just as I thought. No matter who you actually are, there is no way I can allow a dangerous existence like you getting closer to the royal family. I’ll deal with you here.」

「……Why are you going to kill me?」

Grave endured the intense pain from Pain and immediately chased me.  had thought that some high ranked warrior might be able to endure it, but still he recovered too fast. When I talked to him in order to buy time for forming my next plan, Grave conscientiously answered me.

「Just in case. I’m crushing any possibility that might disturb the country’s peace just in case. Just like the princess that you’re intimate with.」

「…………」

Elena was……so that was why I thought her security felt undermanned…….

「You die.」

I pulled out my knife with my right hand and threw it at the same time as my left hand threw pendulum. Grave took a step back full of composure to dodge the pendulum’s blade while deflecting the knife with the sword in his hand.

「Nuh?」

I had thrown a second knife so it was hidden in the shadow of the first knife. It grazed Grave. During that time I took out a small bag from my pocket and threw it. Powder scattered to the surrounding.

「Poison huh-」

Grave instantly saw that through and covered his mouth while charging. As expected he had poison resistance. Even so when I threw one more small bag, Grave finally stopped moving.

「Cheap trick-!」

The first bag was filled with powder of poisonous grass and could be resisted with poison resistance, but the second bag wasn’t poison. It was a stimulant that I made by grinding the mustard seeds that I found in the forest. Grave dodged that while throwing a knife. I deflected it with my black knife and started chanting inside my mouth while jumping down from the rooftop of a three-storey building.

「You won’t get away.」

Grave also immediately jumped down in pursuit. I fell while chanting Weight to shift my falling direction. Just before I fell on the ground, I entwined my pendulum on a window’s handrail and ran up the wall using the centrifugal force. I passed the falling Grave while leaping back on the rooftop I was just on.

I had no confidence that I would be able to perform this kind of acrobatic move one more time, even so I’d use this time I had bought effectively.

I scattered my last mustard powder at the spot where I thought Grave would climb at to buy as much time as possible. Then without pause I started running on the rooftop without even looking back when a knife that flew from behind grazed my shoulder.

He already climbed up. But with this much distance, I shouldn’t get seriously wounded even if his throwing knife pierced me. Of course it was also possible that he would hit my vital spot, but I could only leave that matter to luck.

I threw around the weapons that I had in hand as disposable tool to hold back Grave while running through the dark rooftop.

I already ran out of poison and even my last throwing knife was dodged.

The string of my pendulum was also severed and its blade had flown away to somewhere. When the only weapon remaining on me became only the black knife, I had been cornered until the large pier along the river.

「You’ve been a real pain running around all over the place.」

Grave finally cornered the suspicious kid named Aria until the river.

Acrobatic movement and various poisons that caused abnormal condition. Throwing knives and a strange weapon of blade tied with string. And then there was that sorcery that caused intense pain, this kid had learned a lot of strange skills.

All her techniques looked strange in a glance, but all of them seemed to be skills that were learned with the assumption of fighting a stronger opponent alone. Especially that sorcery, even Grave who had familiarized himself with pain through intense training was stopped from moving for an instant. If Aria had the strength of rank 4 or above, even Grave might get killed if it was used on him while he was unaware.

(This kid is dangerous just as expected……I’ll kill her here before she can turn her blade at the nation.)

She gave him a harder time than expected but it was over with this. Aria didn’t have any more weapon. She took a fighting stance with her last remaining weapon the black knife while steadily getting cornered until the edge of the pier.

「Are you going to challenge me one last time knowing that it’s useless? Or are you going to sever your own life with that knife?」

「…………」

Aria didn’t reply at all. Her sharp gaze glared at Grave while searching for even the smallest path to survive.

He didn’t hate those eyes. He felt like he understood just a little now why Sera and Viro paid attention to her and trained her personally like she was their favorite student.

「I……have no plan dying by your hand.」

Aria’s foot kicked on the edge of the pier. Her small body floated in the air.

Grave could also throw a knife at her in that moment. But, he was entranced by those powerful eyes that were struggling desperately to cling on life. He saw off Aria’s figure vanishing into the rapid torrent of the pitch black river.

「So in the end, she chose to end herself huh……」

If possible he wanted to collect what she was hiding and found out her true identity, but it was enough as long as he could dispose of a future disaster. Those eyes of her that he saw at the end still showed a strong fixation to life, but it was unthinkable that she would survive by jumping into this kind of raging stream that was inhabited by monster in the dark night where nothing could be seen.

With night vision that saw by using magic particle’s reflection, it would be mostly ineffective within this raging stream. Aria couldn’t use the sorcery of breathing in water. Within this water where she wouldn’t even be able to understand where was up and down, the probability of her surviving would be lower than fighting Grave and escaping.

Grave wondered if her action was her last harassment to her. He had cornered many people to their death until now, but many of the smarter opponents took that kind of action at the end in order to erase the proof of their existence.

Most likely the chance that he would be able to collect her corpse was despairingly low. He didn’t know how far she would get washed away with this river’s stream, and even if she got washed away until downstream, her corpse should get disposed by getting eaten by hungry monster.

「……It’s time I guess.」

Until now he had been taking action carefully so that he wouldn’t get suspected, but now he had ignored an order from the dark side and killed a non-target, so he couldn’t return to the organization anymore.

Perhaps he would be able to make excuse by saying that Aria fell into the river and died in an accident, but he originally affiliated himself to the dark side only to obtain information from them, and it felt like he was starting to get suspected by Sera and some others recently, so he judged that there was already no benefit for him to remain in the dark side. Far from that because of his standing there at present he was unable to deal with his targets as he wanted. Grave felt that it was troublesome.

「…………」

For some reason he felt uneasy and looked toward the dark raging stream once more.

There was no way she could survive. But, if she survived…….

「At that time Aria……I’ll recognize your worth.」

Like that Grave melted into the darkness of the moonless night and vanished. He erased his figure from the front stage.

The threat of monstrous person that assaulted the territory of Baron Seylace quietened down and the maid girl who became the last victim went missing. The incident was resolved with such view.

.

And then──

Inside the downstream water where the flow of the river was slightly weakening, a rank 1 monster, a huge snake that was making that area as its residence sensed the presence of meat in the flow of water.

Normally it had fish and the like as food, but the corpses of animal and human that very rarely flowed here were the greatest feast for the water snake.

It long body that reached several meters wriggled and advanced inside the water. Its jaw spread out so widely that it could swallow something at the size of a lamb whole as it laid in wait. Then suddenly a sound that was like a “voice” rippled from the existence that it thought as meat. The surge of magic power slashed the water snake’s head.

If there was still consciousness in the head of the water snake that was washed away by the river stream, it would surely notice the headless corpses of several water snake that was flowing behind that existence.

That existence grabbed the tail of the water snake that lost its head and got washed ashore at the shoal. The face of a girl with pink blond hair popped out from the water surface with a black blade bit between her teeth.

Like that she swam until the bank and dispelled Hard from her mud covered maid uniform that she used as replacement of a life buoy. She used her freezing fingers to hold the knife in her mouth and turned her gaze to the direction of the city.

Her life was targeted just because of an unsure suspicion. And even that assassin’s dagger was going to be pointed toward Elena──

.

「Grave……I’ll definitely kill you.」