Interlude: The Girl and the Spark
Three Minutes Ago, Eltram, Commercial Area
“Whoever you are, you better show yourself or we’ll shoot!”
Hearing the voices and seeing the guns directed straight at her completely terrified Fey. Oh ...! Th-They found me! Wh-What do I do?!
From what she could tell, she was surrounded by four soldiers. She couldn’t see anyone else around, and the two Marshall IIs positioned in the mall weren’t visible from where she was.
Umm...uhh...in a situation like this, I gotta...umm...! On the verge of completely panicking, Fey poked her crest over and over. That made multiple semitransparent liquid masses drop out of it until they reached a total of eight.
I’ll just put my safety first! Fey then raised her hands and stood up from the planters. “I give up! I surrender! Don’t shoot!” she said, asserting that she had no will to fight...
“Truth Discernment picked up a lie! She’s gonna resist!”
...only for that particular skill to expose her true intentions.
“AHHH! Seriously, that skill?!” she wailed. Most experienced people in Dendro always took the existence of Truth Discernment into account, so it was actually fairly rare for people to be caught by it.
And now, knowing that Fey was planning to fight, the soldiers started to squeeze their triggers...
“Steal!”
...just as Fey made use of her AGI advantage and activated her own skill before they could fire.
However, that was meaningless. The thief grouping’s Steal was a skill that stole the target’s items with a success rate based on skill level and the DEX stat—but it required the user to be close to the target. With there being ten metels between her and the soldiers, there was no way she could touch them.
Thus, this skill was useless for her own two hands...
“Stehlen.”
...but it wasn’t for the eight hands that reached out toward her target.
The eight puddles near the four soldiers’ feet spoke one single word—the very same semitransparent liquids that dropped out of Fey’s crest.
However, there were now hands sticking out from each of them, and in their palms...
“Hm...? What?”
...were the four soldiers’ stolen guns.
Four hands held a gun each. Three of the remaining ones held nothing, while the last one clutched one soldier’s pants.
“Not a bad result,” said Fey to herself. “Wait, now’s not the time for congratulating myself! Sleeping Fang!”
“Schlafen Fangzahn.” Though satisfied with the results of her arms, Fey hastily used Sleeping Fang—a dagger weapon skill.
The arms then let go of the weapons they held and transformed into blades before repeatedly attacking the soldiers, who were still confused by the disappearance of their weapons.
The damage of the attacks was low, but after a few cuts, the soldiers received the Forced Sleep debuff and passed out. This was Sleeping Fang’s effect.
“Neutralized!” Fey proudly said, having rid the soldiers of their weapons, consciousness...and one pair of pants.
This wouldn’t have been possible without her Embryo: Type Legion, United Barrage, Schiffs Gespenst.
It was based on the Japanese yokai called “funayurei,” or “boat spirits”—hordes of wraiths created from people who had been taken by the water. They stuck out their hands seeking ladles, only to use them to sink other ships and drag their passengers down to join them in their watery grave.
Schiffs Gespenst was an Embryo that used skills given to it by Fey. If Fey used Steal, the ten arms she could create would also use Steal, and if she used Sleeping Fang, they would also use Sleeping Fang.
This was due to the Embryo’s unique skill, Added Hands, which allowed her to multiply the effect of any skill that used her hands. Including her own activation, she could use such skills a maximum of eleven times at once—and she could do it from a distance as well.
These features came at the cost of making each Gespenst weak as far as Guardians went, and if defeated, they required some time to be restored.
Even so, their utility and versatility more than made up for that.
“Heh heh heh! I’ll take these four pricey-lookin’ guns—and the contents of your pockets! It’s the winner’s right!” she said as she began emptying the sleeping soldiers’ pockets, living up to her name as a member of a bandit clan. “I’ll be eatin’ good for a while!”
But while she was doing that, the comms devices on their waists suddenly let out a siren.
“Gaaahhh?! What?! What’s goin’ on?! Was that me?!” Fey was terrified that she was the cause of the siren, just like Eldridge was worrying in the ballroom, but that wasn’t the case. If these soldiers were the ones who reported the emergency, it wouldn’t be their comms devices ringing.
The cause was elsewhere, and it had happened before Fey took to action.
◆◆◆
Five Minutes Ago, Eltram, Second Class Cabin Area
“Hic... Sniff...”
A girl was running through the cabin area’s hallway. Tears were streaming down her face and falling on the carpet below, leaving tiny stains.
“Dad...” Her name was Doris, and she was the daughter of the man who’d made a deal with Moneygold.
Her father had long been stuck in a dead-end job as the subordinate of a slave dealer. Although such businesses were legal here, society didn’t look at them the same way as other merchants, nor was the income good enough to make up for the stigma. Doris’s mother had lost all love for her hopeless husband and abandoned him and their daughter a long time ago.
However, things had begun to change for them when the slave dealer Doris’s father was working for acquired the Orb with the power to turn monsters into beautiful men and women. The monsters used as the base were easy to acquire, and the results were still more than good enough to satisfy human cravings.
The slave dealer instantly began using the Orb to make a fortune—but then it was found out that the humans turned back into monsters in three days.
The slave dealer quickly gained a reputation as a scammer, his store was destroyed, and his life ended soon after that.
The Orb that caused all this, however, ended up in the hands of his subordinate—Doris’s father’s—and he quickly crafted a plan.
Perhaps it wasn’t complex enough to be called a plan, though. Seeing the fate of his boss, he had no intention of using the Orb for business—in fact, he wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible.
And that was exactly what he chose to do. Thus, he sent an anonymous letter to the most powerful entity in Caldinan commerce—the Caldinan congress—and offered to sell it to them.
The congress responded with directions telling him to board Eltram.
Fearing those chasing the Orb as well as those who weren’t satisfied with only punishing the slave dealer himself, he and his daughter desperately rushed to the city Eltram would stop at.
And after they’d made the deal here, he’d looked at Doris and said, “I’ll finally have my own business...a business in Drac-Nomad, at that. I’ll be able to make you happier than you ever were...Doris...”
With those caring words, he gently patted his daughter’s head. This had happened a mere six hours ago.
But now, Doris was all alone.
She and her father hadn’t participated in the ball at the special ballroom. They’d been on the run for so long that they chose to simply rest in their cabin instead.
But then they were awakened by the DLG’s announcement ringing through the speakers.
The sudden voice made Doris’s father jump up from the bed as if it put him on high alert, but he wasn’t actually processing the situation that well.
A moment later, the door to their cabin opened up, and a military man rushed inside. He was one of the soldiers going around the cabins and gathering the passengers in one place to make them easier to watch.
Doris’s father was instantly overcome by terror and panic, so he threw a flower pot at the soldier.
This might’ve been nothing but an irrational action caused by the residual fear from their life on the run. However, it was enough for the soldier to see him as a threat and quickly fire at him.
Struck by countless bullets, he was mortally wounded.
“D-Doris...run...away...to...M-Moneygold...” Spewing bloody foam from his mouth, he used what little energy he had left to leap on the soldier. Knowing he wouldn’t survive this, he did it just so he could give his daughter a chance to escape.
Despite that, Doris didn’t move at first...
“GO...!”
...but when she saw the desperation in his expression as he said that final word, she darted out.
“Hic... Hic...” She’d been running since then, sobbing all the way. Her destination was the room in which her father and Moneygold made the deal, but there was no telling how long it would take her tiny legs to bring her there.
The DLG’s soldiers scattered throughout the ship would probably find her first. However, she was in no state to think about that and try to hide instead.
She merely listened to her father’s final words and ran.
She cried, she ran, and she thought, We were about to be happy... Why...? It hurts... I’m so sad... Dad...
The hopeful future her father had told her about was no longer in reach, and the tears in her eyes made it hard to see even what was right in front of her.
That might’ve been why she soon collided with someone.
“Oh...I-I’m...s-sorry...”
“Oww...I fell on my butt...huh? Are you cwying?”
“...Oh.”
The person she bumped into—a girl who couldn’t speak very well—commented on Doris’s weeping, and Doris raised her hands to her face.
The tears were flowing still, showing no signs of stopping.
“What’s wrong? Do you have an ouchie?”
“My dad...was shot... He told me...to run...and...” Through the sobs, Doris tried to answer, but as she spoke, the sadness welled up once more and her tears flowed uncontrollably again.
At first, the girl did nothing but look right at Doris. But then, she abruptly took out a handkerchief and gently touched it to Doris’s face.
“It’s ok to cry. Cry all you want. Crying is what you do when you’re sad,” the girl said, talking slightly better than she had a moment before, as she wiped away the tears.
The two had a moment, but then...
“There! There’s two children!”
“Get them! And fire if they resist! They could be Masters that just look young!”
...they heard the heavy footsteps of armed soldiers.
“Y-You should...run too...! The bad people...are here...!” Doris said, still scared and desperate. She was terrified that the ones who’d killed her father would also kill not only her, but also this nice girl she’d just met.
However, the girl she spoke to had a completely blank expression on her face.
With cold, mechanical eyes, she was observing the approaching soldiers.
“Raise your hands! And come with us! We’ll fire if you resist!”
The girl then saw them aim their guns at her and Doris.
“Minus.” A moment after that word, a helmeted head rolled on the floor.
No, it wasn’t just one.
A hatchet flew through the air in an arc, decapitating three of the soldiers.
“Huh?!” Another soldier voiced his shock—but not at his comrades who lost their heads.
It was because a girl raising an axe above appeared before him in an instant—a sight that looked almost like she had dropped several frames in an animation.
“Minus.” With that word, she decapitated the soldier. Moving at a supersonic speed the eye couldn’t follow, she slaughtered them one by one.
“EE-EEAHHH...!” A nightmarish scene was unfolding before the eyes of the screaming soldiers. A young girl wearing a dress was massacring these well-trained warriors.
But this was something they had predicted themselves: “They could be Masters that just look young!”
Indeed. This girl was a Master.
In fact, she was among the worst they could ever have encountered.
Murder Princess, Emily Killingston had deemed them to be minuses.
“E-EMERGEN— Guhhh?!” The very last one pressed the comms device button announcing an emergency, but died before he could explain what was happening.
The siren alone rang out, spreading news of a disturbance, but not what or where it was.
“Emily...there you are.”
As the siren still rang, they were joined by a man with a bandaged right arm—Zhang.
Emily had logged in without warning, and he’d been looking around for her in the cabin area.
“This is...” A single glance at the remains of the soldiers instantly made him understand what had happened here. He’d heard the DLG’s announcement and had a feeling that it would lead to combat on the ship.
I hoped that nothing would happen before Rascal arrived, he thought. However, this was a sudden and unexpected event. Zhang didn’t have much control over it.
Anyhow, he figured that the best course of action now was to take Emily, hide somewhere, and observe the conflicts here unfold.
“Emily...hm?!”
However, he quickly realized that that wouldn’t happen.
Emily was still in her killing mode. Despite killing every opponent here, she was still ready for combat.
She’s like how she was in Cortana...but there are no hostiles or neutrals here! Back then, after eliminating the enemies, she’d continued the slaughter by focusing on neutral Masters instead, but things were different this time. The only ones here were Zhang and Doris—who’d fainted dead away when the soldiers pointed their guns at her.
That other girl is the daughter of the person we protected, Zhang thought. I don’t know why she’s here, but Emily doesn’t see her as an enemy. She would’ve already killed her if that was the case...
The fact that the girl was alive at all near Emily in killing mode was the only proof needed that she was no enemy. It slightly confused Zhang, but then Emily did something that confused him even more.
Still in her killing mode, Emily lowered her weapons and gently, with care, took Doris in her hands.
“Wha—?” Zhang was shocked to see Emily in this state do anything other than kill. If he’d been there to witness it, even Rascal would have been left speechless by it.
Then, not saying a word, Emily handed Doris to Zhang.
“Emily?” he said in question, but she ignored him, turned around, readied her weapons again, and walked through the hallway leading to the commercial area.
It felt as though she was saying, “I’m entrusting her to you.” The presence of her still-active killing mode was Emily’s way of expressing, “I’ll go kill some more.”
Zhang was more confused by Emily’s actions than he’d ever been, but figured that the best thing he could do now was do as she wanted and keep the girl safe.
And so, he sent a jiangshi to watch over Emily and carried the unconscious Doris away from danger.
Thus, a giant spark fell upon the gunpowder keg that was Eltram.
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