Blood-Fist Red-Haired Crazy Bitch
Blood-Fist Red-Haired Crazy Bitch.
Han Yunhwa.
A superior with a brash, even violent streak—and yet a fine firefighter, solid and dependable in equal measure.
—or so went the verdict of the colleagues who worked alongside her.
She had little love for paperwork and was always out in the field. The more desperate the situation, the cooler her head became as she sized things up—and still she was the first to hurl herself into the danger. A true firefighter.
Breaking every prejudice against women in the service with that rock-solid presence of hers, Han Yunhwa was someone who earned genuine goodwill from colleagues and juniors alike.
But anyone who had known her in the past would snort and tell you to stop talking absolute nonsense.
About twenty years ago.
It was a barbaric era when street corners overflowed with delinquents who openly shook down students for cash, huffed glue, and tore around at dawn on heavily modified motorcycles that roared at ear-splitting volume.
Among those who lived through that time, there wasn't a soul in her neighborhood who hadn't heard that rumor.
Blood-Fist Red-Haired Crazy Bitch.
The nickname stuck after an incident in which a gang of thugs casually picked a fight with a schoolgirl passing through an alley.
A woman with black hair and only a faintly sharp look around the eyes spotted a student being shaken down as she walked the alley. The thugs just waved her off, telling her to get lost.
That was the spark.
It wasn't sympathy for the kid being robbed. It wasn't some surge of justice at witnessing a wrong. She simply found the way they looked at her and spoke to her utterly disgusting. That was all.
After she quite literally pulverized those three men into paste with her fists—and her bangs were caked dark red with blood—she earned the moniker Blood-Fist Red-Haired Crazy Bitch.
Of course, once word spread that three guys had been completely wrecked by a single woman, the delinquent circle they belonged to grabbed weapons and rushed out to silence the rumor.
She's just a girl, right? Those idiots probably got beat by someone else and made up an excuse. Holding that complacent thought, they figured they'd bring a few weapons, threaten her a bit, and she'd cry and beg for her life—then they could wrap the whole thing up. With that plan, they set out to find her.
And when the delinquent circle finally found her, surrounded her, and started brandishing their weapons, everything was going according to plan.
All she had to do was burst into tears and beg for forgiveness, and it would be perfect.
But one of the delinquents who was there that day later recalled it like this:
A demon. It was like a demon had appeared—he said.
Even with countless weapons pointed at her, she grinned like a maniac, then without any warning hurled a rock she'd picked up somewhere at the head of the nearest one.
The moment the rock struck and the delinquent groaned in pain, dropping the aluminum bat in his hand, the woman lunged forward and snatched up the fallen weapon.
What followed was pure carnage.
As the group panicked when one of their own went down without understanding how, she charged into their midst and swung the weapon without mercy. Every blow brought screams, and she didn't stop beating them until those screams turned into pained moans.
Standing alone in the center of more than a dozen people she'd beaten to the ground—all of them writhing and groaning in agony—she smiled.
And so, with one delinquent circle completely annihilated, the perfect initiation of Blood-Fist Red-Haired Crazy Bitch was complete.
Whoosh—
The heavy axe blade, sharp enough to split anything it struck clean in two, sliced through empty air and missed its mark.
"Oh, you actually dodged that?"
Darian, who'd swung the axe and then lengthened his grip on the handle to settle it back into his hands, laughed with a touch of admiration.
"Haha, well now…"
Gordon, who'd tilted his head back just enough to let the axe blade pass right in front of his nose, lifted the corner of his mouth slightly in answer to that laugh.
That was a swing made with absolute intent to connect. Far too little hesitation for a beginner's movement.
Outwardly it looked as if he were simply demonstrating the gap in their skill, deflecting the attack with nothing but the most economical of motions—but Gordon was inwardly impressed.
People, by nature, found it hard to swing a weapon freely at another human being. Even he himself had only become able to do so without hesitation months after starting this line of work. And yet here was the third child of a coddled noble family—now the family head—someone who had never personally killed a person, swinging a weapon like this. Gordon couldn't help but be astonished.
"Here I come!"
After a brief standoff, Darian moved to swing again and charged at Gordon.
An axe had many disadvantages compared to a sword. True, in terms of transferring force it could deliver more power and greater destructive force than a blade—but when facing a human rather than simply chopping firewood, it fell short. Unless it was a halberd with a sharp spike above the axe head, thrusting and feinting were difficult; attacks had to be swings. And because those swings necessarily involved large movements, there were plenty of openings. If someone closed in or stepped back slightly, following up wasn't easy.
So Gordon, reading Darian's motion and identifying where the axe blade would fly, lightly shifted his feet and drew his body back a little. As expected, Darian's axe just barely missed Gordon's torso—and Gordon found himself looking at Darian's unprotected back, left open by the swing.
I should stop here and continue the explanation.
If he'd had a dagger in hand, a light push of the blade against that exposed neck would have been his victory—so he was extending his fingers instead of a dagger toward Darian's neck when—
Whoosh—
"…Oh no."
From an unexpected angle, the back of the axe blade came flying at Gordon's head.
Darian had deliberately swung the axe in a wide arc, carried the momentum through, and spun his whole body around like throwing a backspin elbow, coming after Gordon a second time.
Gordon's eyes widened at the unexpected attack path. At this rate, the axe would bury itself in his temple.
"…Tch, you dodged this too?"
But Gordon, with body control far too flexible for his age, leaned his waist back to slip the axe, then immediately retreated. Watching that, Darian's brow furrowed slightly, disappointed that his trump card had missed.
"…Remarkable, my lord. This Gordon had no idea the family head's skill was this exceptional."
"I ended up missing everything—didn't even graze your collar. Hearing that doesn't exactly thrill me."
Darian wasn't particularly pleased by Gordon's praise, still disappointed—but Gordon was genuinely impressed.
The movements themselves aren't refined. Less like a soldier trained in formal techniques, more like a rough beast moving on instinct.
But even so, he knew exactly how to go for the throat.
To Gordon's eyes, steeped in many martial arts, Darian's movements were pure beginner. Not efficient technique so much as the kind of rough handling of a weapon that relied on raw physique—like some random bandit or mercenary. But the unexpected flashes of insight and combat sense were truly innate.
"When swinging an axe, one must always gauge the relative positions of oneself and one's opponent."
"Huh? You're giving a lecture all of a sudden?"
"The method you just used, my lord, could deal a fatal follow-up blow if the opponent retreated or blocked—but if, like this—"
"…!"
"—they instead close the distance inward, you can take a critical hit to a vital point while the force transferred to the axe is still insufficient."
Gordon, who'd been explaining from a distance, suddenly vanished from Darian's field of view—and a moment later a single finger pressed under Darian's neck. Cold sweat beaded on Darian's forehead.
"The axe has many disadvantages, but the greatest is this: if the opponent closes in rather than creating distance, it becomes very difficult to respond."
"…Right. Lesson learned."
With Darian frozen mid-swing, Gordon folded his finger away from under Darian's chin, stepped back, and continued his explanation. Darian shrugged as if he'd taken a hit.
"So for the time being, it would be good to practice gauging the distance between yourself and your opponent, and how to respond when they close in."
"Ho… You're not planning to teach me with just your mouth, are you? My blood's starting to boil."
"Of course. This old man finds himself rather unseemly flushed with heat as well."
Even so, the two of them naturally took their stances and faced each other. Soon the dirt of the training ground kicked up once more, and Darian's axe cleaved the air again.
"…Can't I just go back upstairs now?"
And watching all this while sitting on her butt on the training ground floor, soaked in sweat, Rosaria muttered to herself.