Linea (2)

Splash!

Linea poured House Spirin’s medicine over Mar’s body, who had collapsed from multiple overlapping poisons.

“Gack! Ugh! Ack!”

A taste so bitter it was like swallowing poison itself.

The sensation spreading through Mar’s body was enough to shock her back to consciousness from her faint.

“Please bear with it for a moment.”

Regardless of Mar’s rejecting reaction, Linea continued pouring all the medicine she had onto Mar’s mouth and body.

A detoxification medicine specialized in antidotes, made with ingredients that weren’t easy to obtain and took a long time to make.

‘We got lucky.’

She never imagined that what she had made in abundance out of concern for Lost’s body would end up helping like this.

After all, Linea had been considering the long-term battle with the corruption within Lost.

“Cough… huff… haah…”

Mar’s convulsions gradually subsided.

Her tongue must be numb and her body’s sensations gone from the terrible taste.

But it clearly had an effect. The poison’s influence seeping into Mar’s skin had noticeably decreased.

She probably wouldn’t be able to taste food for a while, but that was fine if it meant saving her life.

Clang!

Linea tossed aside the medicine bottle and raised her dagger again.

Margaret’s vines and spores had surrounded her.

“When you can move, you need to run away, Mar.”

“You, just what… don’t…”

Whoosh!

Linea shook her head at Mar’s desperate voice as she bent forward and charged at Margaret.

Crash!

The tree roots writhed and constricted, targeting Linea.

Just as Margaret started feeling confident seeing the tree roots hardened with Belial’s power, harder than steel…

Slash!

Linea’s dagger shredded the tree roots into pieces.

Considering the scale of the tree roots, it was impossible to cover everything with Belial’s power.

Just like how not every spear or arrow is made entirely of metal. She swung her dagger avoiding the shadows dwelling only in necessary parts.

“Haha! Amazing! Truly amazing! How can you do that?”

Margaret’s tree roots were dyed black, making it impossible to distinguish between shadows and normal tree roots with the naked eye.

Yet the opponent was charging forward like a beast, precisely stabbing and cutting only the wooden parts.

“I heard you had a special ability, but to think it would be to this extent!”

An aberration that even Margaret, a half-demon, felt repulsed by.

Looking at Linea as an individual, there wasn’t anything particularly special about her.

A dagger imbued with aura?

For House Spirin, a noble family that provides gifted education from childhood, it would be possible for someone Linea’s age to use aura if they just developed the sense for it.

To save many people, one needs stamina, and for that, physical abilities need to be good.

That’s why they create a mana circle and fill it completely, letting mana’s power flow into the flesh.

That alone would fulfill the conditions for using aura.

House Spirin’s policy had some points in common with knight families at first glance.

Yes, her current level of aura usage isn’t high. You could say she’s just entered the beginner stage.

Then what is it? What about Linea makes one feel fear?

Her beast-like movements that lack proper form and are purely instinctual?

The special ability to accurately find openings even in such a state?

Or perhaps the precision to draw nearly perfect trajectories toward those openings?

No.

“You monster!”

It’s her mindset that encompasses all of that without a moment’s hesitation.

Surely her beast-like instincts must be ringing warning bells.

The number of openings visible to her eyes must be extremely few.

And there must also be an obsession that those openings must be cut precisely.

Yet she can ignore all that and act without hesitation.

There are people who are human-like.

They carefully choose their methods according to each situation.

There are people who are beast-like.

They simply move as their senses and hearts command.

But there can’t exist a being like Linea who can think like a human while possessing beast-like instincts.

Because it’s nearly impossible to turn away from sharp, beast-like instincts ringing warning bells.

Screech!

Linea charges forward while tearing apart the incoming tree roots from the side with long slashes.

As she gets closer to Margaret’s center, more and more pieces of wood fall scattered on the ground.

Even amid the poison spores that disturb the senses and break breathing and nerves, Linea could use her senses to pick out the exact path.

The most dangerous path. The most painful path. The path closest to death.

“Eek!”

Margaret bit her lip seeing Linea slowly but surely closing the distance toward her.

Margaret, who had always killed opponents using mutated spore poison, changed its nature to attack Linea.

When Linea cut through the tree roots again, spores like smoke emerged from within and engulfed her.

Since Linea worked in the medical field and understood the threat of poison well, she had little exposed skin for the poison to take effect.

Then…

Bang!

Margaret began giving Linea physical impacts by detonating the demonic energy contained in the spores.

The mushrooms she had scattered around disappeared in flames because of it.

She was willing to sacrifice her collection gathered from countless people she had killed over time – that’s how threatening Linea was.

“Ha, but with this…!”

Margaret immediately bound Linea, who had taken heavy damage from the explosion, with tree roots.

An opponent far weaker than herself. Yet she had to resort to such methods.

“H-how dare you… d-defile his power?!”

Margaret clearly felt fear. She felt anxious for failing to land attacks on an opponent that should have been easy to kill.

That fact made Margaret unpleasant. As Linea had said, she was seeing her as a monster.

That’s why seeing Linea simply roll on the ground from one explosion made anger surge to her head.

She had to kill her painfully.

“Ugh!”

Linea let out a painful groan from the pressure of tree roots constricting her body.

“Heh, hehehe.”

Margaret smiled seeing Linea’s contorted expression.

Yes, this is right. This is how it should be.

The one feeling fear and pain should be Linea, not herself.

Margaret dragged Linea’s body closer to examine her pained expression in detail.

“You are nothing.”

The sight of Linea bound by tree roots, unable to do anything but let out painful groans.

How satisfying this was.

“See, you can’t do anything? Even with me this close, what can you do besides suffer in pain? Hmm?”

“…”

“Hmm? What are you muttering about?”

Margaret frowned and leaned in to listen as Linea whispered something.

“That dress doesn’t suit you.”

“…”

“Seems you wanted to become nobility, but you don’t know proper etiquette, your manner of speech is awkward… Ah, it’s fine now. Dropping that ill-fitting formal speech really suits who you are now.”

“Ha…!”

Bang!

Margaret slammed Linea into the ground using the tree roots.

“Gack!”

Linea cried out as if having the breath knocked out of her when she hit the ground.

Bang!

Margaret repeated the same action over and over, watching Linea writhe in pain.

Until her anger was satisfied.

Until the noble girl called Linea’s appearance became wretched.

“…Right. I was a bit emotional. Linea. I acted too emotionally toward you who had already lost your weapon. I apologize.”

After repeatedly striking Linea like that for a while, Margaret finally calmed down and returned her speech to how it was before.

“Now then, have you perhaps grasped your position a bit better? You must have, right?”

Margaret pulled Linea before her eyes again and asked.

Margaret wanted to see Linea’s wretched appearance.

But somehow, despite having been thrown around on the ground so much, Linea still looked no different than before.

Was it because beastkin bodies were sturdy? No, that couldn’t be it given her whole body was covered in blood.

Or was it because of her clothes?

“Yes, that must be it.”

It must be because she’s wearing Nidavellir-made clothes. After all, it was a special order item that maintained cleanliness to the point that barely any blood would stick to it.

Margaret reached her own conclusions comparing herself and Linea.

“…Hey.”

“Yes, Linea. Any last words you’d like to leave?”

Margaret leaned in again to listen to Linea’s voice.

“You knew about my ability, right?”

“Yes. He told me about it. The great King of Darkness knows everything.”

“Seems I failed to properly deal with Baroness Ryan back then.”

Linea could guess how her ability had been discovered.

“But it’s a bit crude. Your master must not pay much attention to the words of failures.”

“What?”

“You got close.”

Crunch!

Linea bit into Margaret’s nape as she was leaning in to listen.

“Ah?”

A half-demon’s flesh is harder than a human’s. Even for a beastkin with good bite strength, it would normally be impossible to tear through that neck in one bite.

‘My ability shows me all the means I can use.’

Red tooth marks visible only to Linea’s eyes. Said she lost her weapon? Wrong. As long as she exists as a subject, this power won’t disappear.

If it had been that easy to begin with, there would have been no need to worry.

In the eyes of Linea who lost her weapon, fingernail and tooth marks appear.

All methods she can cut and break with appear in red.

And…

“I can act emotionally now.”

Slash!

Linea cut through the tree roots binding her body with her dagger.

“Because I have a weapon again now.”

She had clearly dropped her weapon once before. Margaret knew this too, which is why she pulled her close to mock her.

But Margaret had slammed Linea into the ground.

Over and over.

During that process, she was able to retrieve her dagger not so much because of luck but because she had been thrown around that much.

“Guh?!”

The tree roots binding her had also weakened from being repeatedly slammed into the ground.

Unless it was Belial’s power of shadows, it was a mistake that Margaret, who worshipped him like a god, hadn’t used shadow power in that process.

Freed from her bindings, Linea immediately stabbed her dagger into Margaret’s heart multiple times.

“T-this…!”

Linea stabbed her dagger and butchered Margaret’s flesh over and over before her wounds could heal.

Attacks faster than regeneration.

Margaret tried to retreat back while she was still conscious, but with her legs completely rooted into the ground, that too was impossible.

“Eek!”

Margaret faced Linea in unfamiliar close combat.

Linea wasn’t in normal condition either. Margaret should have had plenty of chances to win.

“Ah… ah… ahhh…”

But their basic mindsets were different. Even if Linea allowed Margaret’s attacks, she would carve away at her opponent’s flesh, while Margaret could only make pushing motions against Linea.

Cut over and over again. Seeing her own innards exposed.

Amid repeated death and regeneration, Margaret felt her regenerative ability itself weakening.

‘How many times has it been?!’

Even as she had such thoughts, Linea’s dagger pierced Margaret’s head, momentarily cutting off her consciousness.

Repeatedly losing and regaining consciousness while being killed.

Linea relentlessly cut at Margaret as if she wouldn’t stop until completely finishing her off.

“Gh… ah…”

Even after Margaret’s life was cut off, Linea didn’t stop cutting apart Margaret’s flesh.

Slash! Slash!

As if carving something away, as if that was the purpose.

Linea simply cut Margaret.

Linea didn’t stop until right before completely separating flesh from bone.

She knew the opponent was dead. She knew they could no longer regenerate.

But Linea’s instincts wouldn’t stop until finely chopping the opponent.

Until completely stripping the meat before her eyes from the bone.

Like that, the cruelty within her didn’t stop until the moment Margaret turned to dust and disappeared.

“…”

Having lost all demonic energy within her body.

At the place where Margaret disappeared without leaving behind even a scream, let alone last words.

She knows. That cruelty exists within her inner self.

That there is a certain thrill felt when hurting someone.

It can’t be helped. Hadn’t everyone said so? That she was just an aberrant monster. Hadn’t even the family she loved most unanimously defined her as such?

Linea looked up at the sky while panting. It was a dark night sky.

“Haha.”

Looking up at the starlit sky, Linea burst into hollow laughter.

“Ahaha!”

As if something that had been held back suddenly overflowed.

Linea screamed while alternating between laughing madly and crying.

“Right.”

After suffering like that for a while, Linea collapsed face-down on the ground and muttered self-deprecatingly.

“This is who I am.”

Linea asked the group that had come looking for her with empty eyes.

“How is it? The feeling of seeing my true self that had been deceiving you all this time.”