Published at 10th of September 2022 8:46 am

Chapter 376 – Interlude Viine 2

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

The string of the Golden Titan extended. A golden thread budding in the air.

That was the Unique Item the adventurer party 『Innocent Arms』, led by her master Shuuya Kagari, had obtained from a treasure chest in the labyrinth.

It was Unique, but if you poured mana into it, the golden threads would turn into protective gloves. Whenever she hunted in the Whirlpool Forest of Demonic Fog, she’d use it as a means for attacking and defending without turning it into a hair ornament or gloves. Every once in a while she also amused herself by using it for the string game her elder sister had taught her.

The reason for having increased her usage of the item might be an effect of her having struggled in the battle against the silver-haired, odd-eyed Magic Cloth User in the mansion of Earl Surgebald. The name of that man, who held the alias Odd Eye, was Bounty Hunter Pearson. He was a master at manipulating the Magic Cloth of Ryaguno.

As obvious from the way he handled her, whose strength had been boosted as , Pearson was no ordinary bounty hunter by any means. It could be even said that Pearson wouldn’t have been caught even if Shuuya had participated in the battle against him.

Because of that, the outcome was nothing unusual, but…having let him go weighed on the dark elf’s mind.

Even now, while she recalled the events of that time, she locked the movements of a tree ogre monster by coiling the golden threads around the thighs of its two legs, using Pearson’s way of handling the magic cloth as reference.

With a sharp glare, she fiercely dashed towards the ogre, pointing the crimson-scaled scabbard at its belly just as it was about to fall over to the front thanks to its immobilized legs. Drawing a trajectory as if swinging a bat, she slammed the dead center of her scabbard against the ogre’s thick torso. The ogre’s torso folded in the middle.

Holding its belly thanks to the intense pain, the ogre was blown away while sounds of its belly cracking could be heard.

The dark elf quickly pulled back the scabbard. On the other hand, the ogre crashed with its back against a thick tree trunk in the back, causing a dull, low, thundering rumble, after flying through several other monsters and various foliage. In the next moment, droves of bird monsters, birds, and small insects flew away in panic.

The spine of the ogre had been crushed and broken from the impact against the trunk. Moreover, a long, pointed branch growing out of the trunk had penetrated its belly, giving it the final blow.

The elf didn’t watch the last moments of the ogre. She was surrounded by rock-shaped sorcery golems. In order to cope with them, she applied the walking style of the swordsmanship and assassination style passed down in the Azmail household.

After swinging the scabbard from the left to the right as if to clear away her own silver hair, she stabbed it into the flank of a golem approaching from the right side, making it bend back. Next, while pulling back the scabbard, she advances towards the bent golem. Just like that, she swung down the Ancient Evil Dragon Sword Gadorices in her right hand at the golem’s head with a speed boosted by the wind cladding the blade.

The glittering of the naked blade resembled the Kaldo’s sword skill . Gadorices directly landed on the top of the golem’s head, bisecting it all the way down to the neck. Blood teeming with violet mana furiously gushed out of the two cut sections as the golem’s head parted to the left and right.

Waves of violet blood spurts relentlessly dyed the bluish-white skin forming her pretty face and her glossy, silver hair, which was a symbol of pride for her as a dark elf. Of course, her beloved silver mask wasn’t spared from the onslaught of blood either.

At that moment, she focused on , a part of her as a vampire.

The blood instantly vanished, permeating into her skin and hair.

On the other hand, the now headless golem fell apart like a puzzle that disintegrated in the air, its fragments falling to the ground.

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Not yet! It’s not enough! A lot more mana and blood dwells in this body!

With a sharp glint in her eyes, a firm resolution existed within her unadorned emotions. Her name was Viine Dao Azmail.

Earlier she had replenished her feelings of love through the dense and long conversation with Shuuya Kagari, the suzerain of the Light Demon Lucival.

While remembering the other and Kaldo, who was currently trying to build a dark guild from scratch, she strongly wished to grow powerful once more. And right now she was killing two birds with one stone by training to obtain new blood mana skills, gathering the materials requested by Mysty, or rather three birds with one stone, if you also added her exploring the forest.

She had just slaughtered all the sorcery golems, monsters which were equal to B-Rank adventurers. And then she had looted the orbs consisting of three stacked marbles existing within the jaws of the golems.

“Pheew, the jaws were cracked, but the materials were luckily safe.”

Having finished looting the essential materials, Viine activated as a signal. While confirming the smell of Mysty’s at the same time, Viine proceeded deeper into the valley, where the fog became even thicker, while clearing away the foliage at her feet.

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I must be careful once I’m outside the range of Pheremone’s Touch. Well, since I’m continuing to leave behind my smell, it’s impossible for me to get lost, though…

At that moment, my foot got entangled by grass. Dealing with those memento herb-like leaves and the tolborn leaves, which are constantly trying to stop you by coiling around your feet, is quite a pain. On top of that, the droves of monsters which keep attacking me all the time.

The monsters around here swoop down on me as soon as they see my feet stuck by the leaves, seemingly judging me to be an easy target.

The pretty fox with the silver fur I cut down a moment ago was one of them as well. It’s always a hard fight against those silver foxes. Their fur can extend in all directions from their entire body. They use fur to entwine it around anything that can be called a branch, just to repeatedly move around by leaping while using their fur as new footholds. While exhibiting such nimble movements, they continuously shoot countless fangs from their muzzles which open up all in all directions.

Those are attacks I don’t really want to receive head-on. It’d be a different matter if I had like Master, though.

I’ve managed to defeat a pack of those foxes with their diverse attack patterns by myself, even though I took away injuries all across my body. Afterwards I absorbed all of the foxes’ bright red blood. Then I skinned them carefully so as to not damage their silver pelts, and after collecting their bones, intestines, and meat in another bag at the end, I started to proceed further through the forest.

This place is the best to refine my judgment since fog that dulls your mana perceptions billows up every once in a while. Even right now, I can hear loud beastly voices overlapping from the other side of the depressing fog.

I can’t let down my guard.

My training is proceeding well in such a way, but…I’ve forgotten something important. Yes, hunting by myself means that I must deal with things myself even when feeling down! I’ve thought so moments ago, but I can’t really get careless…in this Whirlpool Forest.

But…I want to pee…

Ohh, right! I have this with me! The 『dark spirits Master calls small middle-aged men or urban legends』.

I activate Rasheena’s Bracelet, causing a great number of midgets and small arms to appear from within the bracelet while marching in ranks. They’re darkness spirits which can change their appearance at will.

I silently pray, 『You guys, spread out around me』, while focusing on the bracelet.

Thereupon they salute and then start moving away while hopping around. In the meantime, I push my way through the tolborn thicket, loosen my belt and the leather binding, and…

An embarrassing gurgling drowns out the forest’s noise. But, I feel better now.

Suddenly the nearby leaves move, and something appears. Something black!

I end up tumbling over out of surprise…

Fallen leaves and twigs end up sticking to my bare butt. Cold.

It’s not that I’ve been careless, but I’ve got to quickly fix my―― Hmm? Looking closely, those are my spirits… All of them are midgets with mouths and beards. They’re jumping around while being happy over having found small mushrooms, bow towards me, salute, or throw nuts at me.

Pheew. I keep watching the small spirits while smiling at my own foolishness. Since they’re small, they might be cute, despite their beards.

But, all of them have taken out scissor-like weapons. I wonder what they’re up to…

That place being exposed to the fresh air feels somewhat refreshing, so without minding it, I watch the actions of the spirits with keen interest.

They’re cutting the surrounding leaves with the scissors. Then they point their scissors at my pussy… Ugh, are they telling me that they want to shave my pubes!?

“…No! This place belongs to Master alone! Go on the other side, and watch the vicinity.”

The spirits look at me with lewd expressions. After saluting, they turn around and leave by skipping.

Good grief…how embarrassing. Just as Master has been saying…they’re really small, middle-aged men.

After getting myself fixed up in a hurry, I cancel the guards of Rasheena’s Bracelet, and resume my forest exploration. As I advanced along the curly grains on the trees that seemed to serve as signs, I sensed a wind wave. That wind wave originated from a bird monster other than a harpy.

Its beaks are as big as that of a griffon. It has stabbed those beaks into the torso of an earthworm monster, gouged it out and cleaved open its intestines as it held the torso. The intestines disappear into the bird’s huge beak, just for it to swallow by making its throat tremble.

It’s a medium-sized dragon, a drake species, but it’s bird shaped with an even longer neck.

While knocking down the surrounding trees with its two wings and four talons, it’s eating up the earthworm… The feathers growing on the bird’s torso are majestic. Somehow it reminds me of Rollodeen-sama’s appearance.

…When two dogs fight for a bone, the third runs away with it is nothing for me…it fills my heart with loneliness. About now, Master and Rollo-sama are putting efforts into rebuilding Cydale and hunting in the Sea of Forest…

Dropping my shoulders as I think of that, I head deeper into the forest.

While predicting what Master and Rollo-sama are doing, I recall the story about ghosts I’ve recently heard from Master. And I remembered the ghost monster called “shapshir” mentioned by Tsuan whom I deeply trust.

Let’s bring out my blood just in case. This is also part of my training.

While focusing on , I release blood from both my feet…

As the dark-red, leather-made Long Gladiator Sandals covering most of my legs dye crimson red, I deploy the blood with the image of creating a lake on the ground’s surface. If it’s Lucival blood, the light element within should have some effect against ethereal bodies.

Mysty also uses her blood like this. The metallic lotuses floating on her blood lake are beautiful and lovely… The blood gathering at Mysty’s stylish shoes is the best part of it.

She’s got a lot of work. And probably because she’s so eager about learning more, she succeeded in developing a wonderful, unique skill.

If it comes to plain sword-drawing techniques, I’ve learned them, but that fusion of blood and metal techniques is delicate and bold. Without dabbling in this and that, I’ll also gather blood and strengthen my skills with the Jade Snake Bow and Gadorices.

Mysty is grumbling a lot, saying things like 『I wouldn’t feel so edgy if I were blood message with Master! Shit, shit, shit!』, but…I greatly respect her high intelligence.

While indulging in such thoughts, I continue walking as I shed blood from my feet. My dense blood that’s spreading in this area. This lake of Lucival blood…instead of searching for enemies…no, I think it’s unsuited for that task. It might work as a method to draw monsters to me with the smell of my blood.

If I try things with my blood, I should be able to get another sensation…I remember that Master has done an exercise called “Radio Calisthenics.” I just watched Spirit-sama and Rollo-sama trying to imitate him, but…now I’m alone, so I won’t feel ashamed.

Let’s try doing those calisthenics on the blood-covered ground.

Remembering his words, “Beauties are doing this training every day,” I keep imitating Master’s arm movements.

But, at that point, the magic sources of monsters draw closer. I guess they were immediately lured in by the blood smell. Since it can’t be helped, I stop the calisthenics and blood emission halfway.

A galband tiger appears in-between the trees. Time for hunting――

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——————- End of Part 1 ——————-

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