Pack Hunt
Human-Slaying Form.
When I forged a sword meant to cut down people instead of monsters, the reason I handed that swordsmanship over to the World Government rather than scrap it was to save lives.
Humanoid bosses multiplying. Awakened losing their minds. Terrorism and armed desertions mounting on the front lines… Compared to how fast the front was changing, martial arts built for fighting other people were desperately scarce.
It was a kind of atonement.
Too many people had died for me. Handing over that art was a small hope that I could pay a little of that debt back, even like this.
"Uh, unnie?"
"Stay back, Clara."
And if I watched that same swordsmanship butcher the innocent… how was I supposed to react?
Should I stop them? Lecture them to never do this again? As if the World Government's dogs would listen to a sermon.
No—did they even need to be left alive? Keeping them breathing wouldn't help a damn bit in the war against the monsters.
"Get as far away as you can. I don't want you caught in this."
The emergency lights were red, so I couldn't quite read my own state. I couldn't tell whether the blood-colored haze over my vision came from the lights or from what I was feeling.
One fact, though, was certain.
I did not want the bastards freely murdering people with the sword I created to walk away unscathed.
"I'll give you ten seconds. Anyone who wants to leave alive—drop your weapons and get on your knees. Now."
So I warned them, knowing full well no one would listen.
I wanted it on record that everything about to happen was on the heads of the ones who ignored me.
"Huh… and who the hell is this bitch?"
The only answer that came back was mockery.
To men armored in A-rank shields and reactive plating—defense on par with a main battle tank or better—I must have looked like nothing in my bare body.
"Hey, Number Five. Didn't I tell you to lock down the entrances properly?"
"I'm telling you, that's not fair! Those paladin bastards wouldn't let go of me—how was I supposed to keep staring at the CCTV the whole time?"
The rest had already pushed deeper underground. Only fourteen of the execution unit remained. Their leader, blocking the wide corridor, muttered like this whole mess was a nuisance.
"Haa… and where the hell did Number Thirteen go? He said he was checking the entrance by the obelisk and coming right back."
"Ahh. So Thirteen was a person."
I drawled the question back at him and pulled out the dog tags that had fallen earlier. Blood-spattered metal caught the emergency light and gleamed with a sick sheen.
Only then did their loose expressions harden.
"Thirteen was a disappointment… I wonder if the rest of you will be any different?"
"You. What the hell are you?"
Wagging Thirteen's tags and needling them got under their skin so fast it was almost funny.
They'd just slaughtered people without blinking, but their own comrade's death was unforgivable? That they didn't understand the weight of a life at all only made me angrier.
"Pfft. My identity?"
The fact that they still didn't recognize me while swinging my own swordsmanship around was pretty hilarious too. I laughed, empty and careless, with no reason left to hold it in—and they gave up on talking and drew their blades.
"That crazy bitch—grab her and drag her in. Doesn't matter if you cut off her arms and legs. Keep her alive, dump truth serum into her, and something'll come out."
"Yes, sir!"
Steel hissed free, the sound cold as it rolled through the corridor, and the hulking figures packing the hall formed a cordon as they closed in.
I drew against them. With Winter, heavy with a blood-red wind, I leveled the point at the leader's head.
"Crazy bitch, huh…"
Of everything they'd spat out, that might have been the only true thing. After I lost my sister, I hadn't lived a single day in my right mind.
I hated a world that stole everything precious from me. I loathed my own powerlessness for failing to protect the people I loved.
I hated myself for living comfortably while every comrade was dead. I hated the wreck of a person I'd become. I hated the memories of the friends who kept me from being happy. I was disgusted by the version of me that resented the comrades who'd died for me…
Homeless hatred and rage had been feeding on themselves, growing fat. I'd known I was a bomb waiting to go off, and still, with nowhere to pour it out, it had gone to sleep deep in my chest.
Oh. But look at that—I'd found somewhere for the anger to go.
"Don't regret this. This is you committing suicide."
One-Point Pierce
A crimson light punched through the corridor—and the fight began.
Shield Durability: 17%
Reactive Armor Damage Rate: 81%
"What the fuck is this crazy—"
Number One, leader of the execution unit, scowled at the message flaring across his visor.
A graze had dropped a heavy-grade shield. A shield that casually shrugged off special Vatican munitions had gone down like paper.
He did not want to imagine what a clean hit would have done. No—there was no need to imagine it at all.
The corpses of Numbers Two and Three, half their bodies simply gone, demonstrated that power without any filter.
"She's A-rank at minimum! Prepare Pack Hunt!"
The execution unit was an awkward kind of strong—every member B-rank.
Strong among Awakened, sure, but nowhere near the real monsters of A-rank and above. Wolves stuck between dogs and tigers.
So their fighting style was wolfish too. Gather a dozen or so and take down a single superior fighter—Pack Hunt.
"All units, disperse!"
On command the executioners fanned out in every direction and drew as one. Red energy washed over every blade leveled at the silver-haired girl.
Even the same One-Point Pierce was trivial next to the overwhelming force that unknown girl had just shown.
But when more than ten of them drove their swords in at once—
Wolf Fang
That was how they became the sharp teeth of a wolf pack.
"Die!!!"
With the roar, beams of light crashed in from every angle—above, below, left, right. Faced with an all-directions assault she couldn't simply dodge, the girl's blade slid a fraction free of its sheath.
Chaotic Sword
And the world shattered into pieces.
There was no time to dodge, no time to do anything at all. Her stance shifted from draw to sheath, and in the blink of an eye a lattice of cutting lines had already unfolded.
Every executioner charging the girl locked up at once. No matter how brutal their training, they were still human. Once the tendons were severed, of course they couldn't move.
A clear, ringing voice carried through the frozen world.
"Idiots."
Click.
A crisp sheathing note—and blood sprayed.
"Ghhhk!?"
"Gah?!"
"Aaaagh!!!"
Crash—!
Shields shattered. The reactive armor on their cloaks detonated in a chain. Helmets cracked apart and broken glass glittered through the air.
Then the first rank, the ones who'd stepped forward too soon, were carved into dozens of pieces. The second rank collapsed like puppets with their strings cut and toppled into the third.
Half a beat later, a second wave of cuts butchered the fallen third rank.
Twin Strike
In the merciless mesh of cuts grinding space like a blender, Number One survived by pure luck. The Pack Hunt leader's position was at the very back of the formation.
Shield Destroyed
All Reactive Armor Destroyed
User's life is in danger. Activating built-in healing magic.
Warning after warning cascaded across Number One's visor. A green magic circle bloomed over his cloak, and a searing, flesh-cauterizing pain climbed up through his wounds.
"Gyaaaaaagh!?"
The silver girl, drenched head to toe in blood, looked down at Number One writhing pitifully on the floor and let out a soft laugh.
"Pfft. Using the sword art I created against me—did you really think that would work?"
"…What?"
"Didn't catch that? I said it's my sword art. The one you're using."
Even through the nerve-burning agony, the words my sword art drove deep into Number One's mind.
Only then did he truly see her. The girl still standing in the exact spot she'd started from, perfectly at ease.
"Ha. Shit."
From the beginning, she hadn't been serious.
Of course she hadn't.
Against the Sword Saint—a swordsman called a star—Pack Hunt and Human-Slaying Form and all the rest never had a chance of landing.
He'd been curious about the Sword Saint's identity, but not like this. He gave a small, bitter snort and muttered weakly,
"Didn't think that Sword Saint would turn out to be a little kid."
It had never been a fight to begin with.
The moment he understood that, his vision flooded red.
Decapitation
Looking down at the head that had simply dropped, Heaven murmured under her breath.
"Just… think of it as bad luck."
Even knowing the already-dead man would never hear it. Just to shake off the sticky feeling that came after killing.
"…You murdered innocents, so you were always going to die someday too."
I knew how pathetic that justification was. But if I didn't say something like it, I didn't think I could lighten the guilt of taking a life.
I wasn't exactly clean myself.
"…So. I need to move."
Plenty of infiltrators were still inside. I didn't have time to stand around drowning in sentiment.
"Clara, let's go."
"Unnie… are you really okay?"
"I don't know."
People might still be dying right now—I couldn't just stand there blank. Ignoring the heat climbing into my head, I forced my unsteady legs forward.
The door into the deepest chamber of the astronomical observatory. I cut through every hinge locking the thick door in place, kicked it open, and stepped inside.