Chapter 130
Ellen explained to Loyar about what happened at Temple and the events following it. She told Loyar that Reinhardt was worried about them so he headed to Bronzegate, and he was presumed to have disappeared after heading to Wenster Market; so Temple’s forces and the Guards were scouring the area at the moment, but hadn’t found a single lead as of Friday.
“Damn it. In this situation, he…”
Loyar ground her teeth. Things weren’t going well. The Rotary Gang was about to move there with all its members except those that worked on the trains when that heavy rain had suddenly swept away their base under the bridge.
They had started building some basic constructions but they weren’t finished yet. However, while they were doing that, Reinhardt went to visit Bronzegate and encountered quite the weird situation.
Loyar wasn’t in any position to relax—faced with the fact that Reinhardt had gone missing. It was an unprecedented situation.
“Okay. We’ll take care of this from now on. You guys go back to Temple.”
If those two hadn’t appeared out of nowhere, the Rotary Gang might have overlooked such a serious matter. Although she felt grateful towards them, Loyar thought that those two girls’ roles were over.
“We want to look for him with you.”
“…Huh?”
However, the girl who took the initiative shook her head, saying she wouldn’t be going back.
“Well, I know what you’re thinking… You guys are still young. Just go back, you might end up seeing some real ugly things.”
Loyar lightly grabbed Elen’s shoulder and tried to shove her outside the tent.
-Swish
However, Ellen slightly pivoted to avoid Loyar’s touch.
“…?”
“…”
Did she just avoid me?
Loyar tried once again to grab Ellen with one of her hands.
–Swish
However, Ellen took a step forward to avoid Loyar’s hand.
After those two failed attempts, the slightly buzzing atmosphere started to cool down.
What were they going to do now?
That’s what the people around them were thinking.
“Hoh.”
Loyer decided to go with a slightly rougher method rather than trying to get it over with gently. To her, that girl seemed like someone that wouldn’t listen to words, after all.
She tried to grab Ellen a lot faster—her hands moved incredibly fast.
-Swish
“…”
“…”
However, Ellen avoided her touch with just a single step again.
The atmosphere around them was really chilly.
Loyar had gotten pretty serious, but that little girl still managed to avoid her with just a single step.
Harriet already felt really exhausted by the strange war of nerves going on before her; she figured it wasn’t such an unusual thing.
“Because you’re Reinhardt’s friend, this is the last time I’ll let this slide. Go back while I’m still being nice.”
“We can help too.”
“Sigh.”
There was some slight anger flickering in Loyar’s golden eyes.
Was it because she was a Temple student?
She seemed confident in her physical prowess. In that case, she wouldn’t mind rougher treatment, right?
Loyar struck her hand out almost as fast as lightning. She intended to grab Ellen by the nape, not her shoulder, and throw her out.
-Swish!
However, after reading the hand’s trajectory, Ellen moved her head down to the right to evade it and took another step back.
“I have no intention of fighting you.”
Ellen calmly avoided her move again, she even expressed that he had no intention of attacking her.
“Huh…”
However, it was that type of behavior that made people with a fiery temperament like Loyar attack even harder.
I have no intentions of fighting you = If I get serious, you’d only get hurt.
That was the only thing she could glean from that.
The gang members had their mouths wide open as if they couldn’t believe their own eyes.
None of them had ever seen Loyar lose when it came to close-quarter combat. Whether they were twenty or thirty people, she was able to beat all of them without getting hit even once. In fact, some of the guys there served her as their boss after they got beaten by her personally.
However, that little girl was avoiding Loyar’s hands quite easily, which made her angry.
Was it because she was from Temple? Were all Temple students like that?
Everyone had a startled expression on their faces.
“Brat, just listen to me. I’m doing this because I’m worried for you guys. I think I know what’s going on here and, if I’m right, Reinhardt might still be fine. If you go back, I’ll promise you that Reinhardt will be back at Temple soon, safe and sound.”
It was her last attempt at persuasion. If Ellen made another move, Loyar’s patience would really snap. She was already at the edge of her patience.
Ellen was Reinhardt’s classmate, and she had gone all the way there to let her know that Reinhardt was in trouble, so she felt rather grateful. As such. she was willing to at least concede that much.
However, Ellen still shook her head.
“I want to go with you.”
“Fine.”
– Crack, crack
Loyar’s golden eyes gleamed.
“Let’s do this then.”
-Whoosh!
Loyar rushed towards Ellen and punched out at her.
Ellen’s eyes widened slightly as she saw Loyar rushing at her at a speed that made her first attempts seem like a joke.
‘Too… Fast!’
-Bang!
“Kuhuk!”
“Arg!”
As Ellen got hit, Harriet cried out.
She wasn’t able to dodge it but she still guarded. Ellen crossed her arms to block Loyar’s punch but still bounced back and even got sent flying for a bit. Ellen managed to get up after rolling for a few times.
“Hah, huff… Huff…”
She only got punched once and yet she was wondering if that had broken her arms.
Loyar, who had completely lost her temper, seemed unwilling to stop at only that; she rushed towards Ellen, who had already landed outside the tent.
‘That person, just who is she?’
Not only was Loyar incredibly fast to the extent that it almost felt like an invisible ghost was attacking her, she also seemed to put an invisible pressure on her body as well as her spirit.
Ellen didn’t know that it was the type of pressure Lycanthropes usually applied to their opponents, but there were alarm bells ringing in Ellen’s head that she wasn’t fighting an ordinary person.
“I think I’m going to die if I fight her halfheartedly.”
Just as Loyar was sincerely facing her, Ellen also started thinking that she might really die if she just focused on avoiding her attacks. She didn’t know what Loyar was thinking, but those shivers that rushed all over her body and made all her hairs stand on end made Ellen come to that conclusion.
-Whoosh!
Loyar punched out again, but Ellen didn’t avoid it. She leaned forward and got closer.
-Pang!
She punched Loyar in the stomach.
The solar plexus was one of the human body’s weak points.
“Just now…”
However, Loyar seemed more angry than hurt. After she got hit in her stomach, Loyar’s eyes filled with even more rage.
“Did you go easy on me?”
“!”
Ellen thought that her opponent might die if she used all of her power, so she had controlled her strength, which annoyed Loyar.
That punch was enough to make an ordinary person faint, but Loyar didn’t even flinch.
The places that were supposed to be weak points weren’t actually weak points to her. Ellen couldn’t help but freeze up.
-Bang!
“Urg… Huk!”
Loyar hit Ellen in the stomach with her knee, making her fly away and roll on the floor.
* * *
The Temple student and Irene’s Wild Dog were fighting in the rain. Ellen was barely holding out, even though she tried not to appear as such.
-Punch! Pow! Punch!
In the middle of nowhere, a huge hand-to-hand battle was taking place, but the results were already pretty clear—even in regards to technique.
In terms of physical strength, Ellen was definitely lacking.
“Hey, don’t you have to stop her?!”
“Y-you’re right, but…”
“If we were to touch them now, how many of us would end up getting our arms and legs crippled?”
Loyar’s eyes completely lost any sort of reason, so she wasn’t in a state in which she could be stopped.
Harriet was shocked for a different reason.
Ellen was able to beat an orc with ease, but she was getting pushed back at the moment.
The gang members were surprised that a little kid was able to fight against Irene’s Wild Dog so well, while Harriet couldn’t believe that Loyar was able to overwhelm Ellen, the strongest of their class—even if Loyar was an adult.
“Huff… Urg…”
Loyar was still staring at Ellen, gasping in the rain. It was true that Loyar had flown into a rage, but she didn’t stop thinking.
‘She’s worse than a beast.’
The other party was inferior in strength, skill, speed and dexterity compared to herself, but the only thing that had kept Ellen going and withstanding her attacks had been those ridiculous reflexes of hers. Not only did she manage to avoid a lot of her attacks, she even managed to guard when she was able to.
Loyar seemed to be serious, but she wasn’t actually.
Loyar was planning on only beating her opponent slightly. Otherwise, Ellen would have already ended up with two broken arms after her first attack.
She tried to only apply enough force to make her give up, but it wasn’t that easy.
‘They are raising monsters in Temple, it seems.’
Even though she was still young, defeating her wasn’t that easy if she didn’t have the determination to actually kill her. Were there more monsters like that in Temple?
No.
“Gasp…Huff…”
The girl in front of her was special. Wasn’t the other girl that came with her actually trembling in fear at the moment?
‘Should I kill her?’
That was what Loyar was thinking while keeping her distance from Ellen.
An unprecedented monster raised by Temple. If she already reached that level of skill at her age, she’d only grow into even more of a monster as the years went by.
If she killed a Temple student, she would have to leave the Capital or else she would harm the members of the Rotary Gang. She would be unable to come back to the Imperial Capital ever again.
However, if she left that girl alive, she would pose a tremendous threat to the reconstruction of the Demon Realm.
They had said that they were Reinhardt’s friends, but they probably only grew closer because they had no idea about the truth; they’d surely end up becoming mortal enemies in the future.
Monsters like those had to be killed off before they could grow. No one would be able to kill them in the future, after all.
Why did Reinhardt become friends with such a monster? How did they even become friends?
She couldn’t pass any judgment on her without Reinhardt. Loyar believed in Reinhardt’s words: that he planned to rebuild the Demon Realm.
However, his friendship with Ellen might also be some kind of scheme he came up with, right?
She had to come to a decision on her own at that moment.
This punk.
Obviously, he’d be very upset if I did this.
Even though she was all prickly on the outside, Loyar never intended to betray Reinhardt in the slightest.
If I killed her, would His Highness get into trouble with Temple? Would it be more difficult if I kept her alive?
If she killed her, it would cause problems for her master.
But it was more troublesome to keep her alive.
She strongly believed that Ellen would be a fatal threat towards the reconstruction of the Demon Realm.
If they didn’t kill her now, they wouldn’t get a second chance.
It would be better to kill her and evacuate her master out of Temple and plan out their future moves in a different place.
No, I can’t leave her alive.
Loyar boosted her whole body’s senses. It wasn’t just a normal battle anymore, she entered into her real combat mode.
She used the powers of a Lycanthrope, not Irene’s Wild Dog.
‘Your Highness.’
Ellen swallowed her saliva as she witnessed Loyar strengthening her body to such a degree.
‘I’m going to commit an unforgivable sin to you.’
No matter how right she thought her decision to be, she was still planning on killing her master’s friend.
Loyar leapt forward with both her hands outstretched, not punching out with her fists. She didn’t even need to do that. In that situation, if she was able to get even a single finger in, she would make her opponent explode.
“!”
Ellen felt it clearly when she saw Loyar rushing towards her. It was in her opponent’s gate.
It was killing intent.
She was trying to kill her.
Ellen was able to sense it almost instinctively.
With her eyes wide open, Ellen swung her right arm at Loyar, rushing towards her.
At the same time, something was suddenly summoned into Ellen’s hand.
-Whoosh!
‘This…this is!’
Ellen, who didn’t have anything with her previously, suddenly held a sword in her right hand.
-Kaklang!
And Loyar reflexively blocked the sword being swung at her with her right hand.
The sword came to a halt after cutting halfway into Loyar’s hand.
“!”
Everyone was staring at the unidentified sword that suddenly appeared in the girl’s grasp with astonishment.
